All right, Brendan, thanks for joining us on the podcast this week. I'm really excited to get to know wolf tooth and also a little bit better today. Yeah, thanks for having me. I always like starting out by learning a little bit more about you as a writer and since you're a, a, an owner of a company, I'd love to learn just a little bit more about how the company started.

Yeah, well I guess I'll talk about the three of us that started together. Um, Mike is the original founder and Dan and I joined him, uh, about a month or two after he started at Mike's. Been racing 20 or 25 years in cross country avid mountain bike, rabid sat biker Dan, my other business partner is a more of a distance guy. He'd done. I did a bike or I did a rod, I guess he's done the arrowhead 1:35 half a dozen times during the Baja divide, you know, just all kinds of crazy long distance stuff. And then, um, I come from an SCC race background erased ECC pro level, like c for about 10 or 12 years and still dabble in some racing, but, uh, given the business and growing children, I haven't been doing quite as much as they used to. So, so we kind of come from a bit of a diverse set of, uh, a writing background, um, which brings a lot to the table when we start talking about out. So

yeah, absolutely. And did you guys have an engineering background professionally?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, so we all came from the tech world, um, engineers and tech. Mike and I worked in a automation engineering department, so we basically designed robots that built a hard disk drives and then Dan was on the design side of the hard disk drive, so designing the intricate details of a hard disk drive and all the mechanical features. So we all worked together doing this and um, had a passion for riding road at lunch together, that kind of thing. And always talked about bike parts and maybe deficiencies in some and things we liked and didn't like. And um, and that's where the passion started and then an opportunity came to give this a go and we jumped at it.

What was the problem that you guys saw initially? What was the first product?

The very first product was actually a chain ring, a wide narrow chain ring for a fat bike, um, because we here in Minnesota, we're forced to ride bikes four or five months a year. And so mike design that up and I started testing it and it's about the same time that [inaudible] came out and we really felt that one by was a key, um, technology for fat bikes because front railers tended to not work with snow and ice. And so that was the first product. And then what actions actually the biggest product for the company that Kinda really got us off ground was those cassette extenders. And um, back when people were just starting to go one by and adding the 42 to two, their 10 speed. And uh, you know, at this point we basically don't sell any of those anymore. The oems have largely answered that large wide range cassette question. But uh, so those are the two kind of first products that got us off the ground while we were still working our day jobs, packet packet, ca technology hard this rep company.

And was that derailleur extension piece, was that something that originally was solving a problem that you were seeing in the fat bike world specifically or, or any one by setup?

Well, so there was the cassette extender, so it's actually a cassette cog that went behind the cassette was the first product later we did follow up with a, a derailleur extension piece to help help that work better. Um, but that was just a cassette piece that honestly it was pretty ubiquitous no matter where you lived in the mountains or you lived in the flat, he lived in the flat so you could just run a bigger chain ring. And at the time, remember the cassettes were only 1136 was the biggest right now, you know, now we're talking 10:50 AM, 10:51 in the case of Shimano new 12 speed. Uh, the 1136 sounds absolutely teeny, like a road or gravel or something.

I think that's absolutely where I first came to become aware of, uh, was in that I was running my niner gravel bike and I always needed more gears and someone came up to me and said, you know, you don't have to change the derailleur, you can just get this little part by this company in Minnesota and it can solve all your problems.

Yeah. All the problems.

Maybe not the problems with my lack of horsepower at times, but you youth it not me a man. Well that's great. That's a really interesting origin story. And then presumably as you guys acquired more equipment and sophomore or opportunity, you just sort of let your engineering minds grow wild. And I've seen you kind of pick a lot of problem opportunities across the cycling space to tackle with your unique componentry.

Yeah. Yeah. So we, uh, from the beginning we had a lot more ideas than those are just the two products that kind of allowed us to launch the company. But very quickly just knowing that oems are going to make wide range cassettes, which they do now today. And knowing that there's going to be other challenges, we'd with a derailleur optimization, all that stuff. We quickly moved into the things that like our be Rad system and some of these more innovative standalone products that aren't tied to necessarily somebody cassette or somebody is derailleur. Um, so that's something we did very early on with foresight to all products have a finite life when we need to go specifically probably only had three to four year run rate. So.

Right. Yeah. What a step back. I definitely want to get into the be rad system. But with respects to gearing for gravel riding, you'd mentioned sort of your excitement, enthusiasm behind. No one by trend. Do you see that continuing across kind of all segments of cycling or GC, the roadies still retaining to buy as you know, the predominant option?

It's an interesting and kind of polarizing question on the road. Um, I think it's less, less so on a gravel and then not at all in the mountains. The mountains by rights all switched to one by. I know there's some still some holdouts, and I'm not saying everybody has to go one bike because it gives people, some people pretty worked up, but uh, and then on gravel, honestly having a little, a little wider range cassette, I think you've found it extremely useful. Um, you know, you end up with these little corn cob cassettes, I call him like 11, 25, you end up with double shifts anyway. Most of the time on gravel road is going to be a bit more of a challenge and you know, just just a frame road for a second. The number of usable actual years on a double. A typical double setup is about 14. So you know, where we're at right now, we're at 12 speed right now. Right, right. And so you could see a way to 13 speed in the near future, I'm guessing on the road. Um, and so if you got the 13 speed, could you fudge those bigger three cars and not upset roadies and have small enough jumps in the small causes? Maybe that's what it's going to take though.

Yeah, I think you're right. I, I, I struggled a bit, so I've bought my last spike two years ago and I had made the decision that I was going to buy one bike that was gonna replace my road bike and gravel bike and all the research I pointed to lead me to believe yeah, there were some nuances that I would lose and going to a one by. And so I elected to go to a two by simply because I was trying to purely replaced my road bike and I've largely been happy with it. But one of the things that I have come to realize that know, which is probably obvious in retrospect was that the one by a drive train off road is just so much quieter without, uh, you know, the longer chain and the front trailer on there that there's, to me a real advantage there and any disadvantage I was perceiving or loss of, you know, gear subtlety really hasn't manifested itself in the way I feared it would.

No, you got to remember though, there is really high level road racing and there's the time where it can get annoying. Basically if you're in a group road ride and you know, the, the um, the speed is changing subtly and you want to shift, just barely shifted gear to keep your cadence at a certain level or people that have spent years and years on road bikes and expecting that one tooth cog difference, that those are the people that'll be the last hold outs and honestly it'll take 14 speed's probably to convert them.

And uh, do you still have a road bike in your garage?

Not the kind with skinny tires.

The skinny tires I have on right now are $38, I think 38 because honestly with, with cell phones, um, I avoid at all costs that a personal impact. All of us, pretty much everybody on staff here does. I don't. There's maybe one or two guys that do group road rides anymore. Yeah. But even then, like this time of year, they're, the group road rides shifts to gravel. Um, I was just out this weekend, this out this weekend for a cruise in several hours. I saw four cars unraveled and that was, it was bliss. It was blissful. Every time, every time I'm on the road, it's like, you know, white knuckles is, are they on their phone, are they drinking their coffee or you know, whatever. And uh, just not the fun relaxing experience I want when I'm out riding my bike.

Yeah. I'm always saying the same thing to my roadie hold out friends that they just don't know what they're missing. When you can get out there and get off the beaten path and not have to worry about cars at all. And you can just have pure peace during your rides.

Yeah. Yeah. You've come out and just like totally refreshed. Maybe. Maybe you're tired, but totally refreshed mentally and, and happy. I don't know how else to describe it. I, I'll feel after her gravel. Right. But just, just content and happy.

Yeah, I agree. I think it just, it plays on a number of different lover, the levers emotionally. When you're out there riding, you get the peace and solitude, but then you also get challenging sections where you felt glom onto something a little bit more tactical on your gravel bike and get your heart rate up.

Yeah. Yup. So it'll be, you know, if we get to 13 or 14 speeds, I think one by will make huge inroads into road and probably completely take over gravel.

Yeah, I think you're right. And then certainly on my next bike, which is upcoming and I'm definitely going to go the one by route and um, you know, any shortcomings, I spent so much time off road that they've road shortcomings aren't going to bother me whatsoever.

Right. And the interesting thing thing on the side that we've seen with, with gravel and road is that, um, it used to be all a lot of the chain rings we sold in the gravel and road segments square, 40 to 40, 38 meaning cyclocross racers and writers and now we're seeing a shift to a lot of $46 going out the door, which is kind of that sweet spot for the one by gravel with a wide range cassette or one by road with a wide range. So we are actually seeing it on the chain ring side too.

What type of cassette gear ratio or people matching to that? 40 six?

Um, typically it'd be 1140 Shimano cassettes are and that's our favorite, that's what we all run. They have nice, small, not small for roadies again, but smallish your steps, I'm relatively inexpensive cassettes, they're easy to get if it on hd driver. Um, so that's the most common one that we're seeing.

And what derailer systems does that put you into?

Well, for one by you can basically get any derailer to work if you're using our thriller optimization products, um, the road linker to go link or some of the trailers work natively with you had the 10 pan which allows road shifters to work with mountain bike rider railers, but basically the 1140 isn't too challenging to get to work from a one by perspective once the 1142 is a little more 10:42, and then once you get to 1146 you're really pretty much stuck with you than a mountain bike reader. Railer and your road shifters. Um, or in Graham's case, Ram actually has a, some wide range of solutions that work with that out of the box. So.

Right. Interesting. Well, shifting gears a little bit, let's talk about the [inaudible] system. I mentioned in my initial outreach to you. I had my first multiday bike packing experience and I recognize the shortcoming in my bottle setup, so I was interested to talk to you about the Rad and where that came from.

Oh boy. I don't know if I. I should let this out of the bag, but so be routed. Actually it stands for bottle, a relocation and accessory device, but the initial design for the very first came out of Iraq and scientists know Joe guy that works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory a. He happens to be my brother. Brad. Going to be Rad. Came from ice. No joke. He made he uh, yeah, he was A. Yeah, I don't think we've ever told this story. He was trying to move his bottle around a little bit on trying to remember. I think it was his ibis, maybe a Mojo. Um, anyway, he came up with this little kind of looks like the two that we sell today. We sell three different signaling for people that don't know, three different bases. Is that allow you to mount things on your bike and move bottles around you have to go to the website to see how it all works.

But he designed the smallest base, smallest of the three to be read to kind of. And it was actually, um, you know, something that I had seen and then one of my employees and uh, the guy that runs a machine shop unbeknownst to us and without asking, just went off and made a couple and I saw that and actually we had been working on some other, the double bottle thing where you can mount the two bottles side by side, which is some people laugh at. But uh, those that have tried it, no, it's pretty sweet. Um, if you need to throw more water, we'd had some prototypes around that, but that didn't really become a product until I saw the Rad. And I'm like, you know, the double bottles of product if it's an accessory to another system. And so we kind of put that together and started developing the different length basis.

Um, and then launched with this system with the three bases I'm mounting plate with a strap, then those bases and the double bottle. And so what this allowed you to do is mountain bottles up and down and move bottles around, knocked two bottles on mount these straps that held things on your bike and it really allowed gravel and adventure riders and even at cross country racers to too, I'd extend, gets stuff off their back and so, and then it's just grown from there and I'll go on there and there's, I think a 10 or 12 accessories you can buy for the system all based on these, these three bases that you can mount on your bike. Right. So that's how it started. It was, it was kind of an accident, um, and kind of something that we didn't prove the guy that was working on to work on, but we didn't stop them either.

Right. And then you found out it started working in and opening up some new possibilities.

Yeah, it was more like, hey, we had this other stuff that, oh yeah, if we took this and this together, it becomes a system and then, and then now here we are today.

Yeah, for those of you trying to visualize it, so you've got a base that mounts into your existing water bottle, water bottle, cage area, and then you can adjust where you attach your water bottle cage or accessory to a different area of your top two or sorry, happier. You're down tube. Um, which provides with the accessory mounts a unique way of adding multiple water bottle cages or pumping tube strap. A whole bunch of other accessories.

Yeah, yeah. The best way to go to the site and look at it, look at it because there's so many different ways. It's always kind of described it as the erector set of a bicycle accessory mounting because there's going to have tinkered with it for hours in my basement. Moving stuff around, especially with the bags and stuff we have now. And you can really hang in, jam a lot of stuff on your bike. And basically at this point I'm writing most of the time with just a cell phone in my pocket,

right? Yeah. And my bike packing setup, I had a sort of a quarter frame bag and I just needed the bottle cages to be exterior to that. And I looked at the two water bottle mountain. I was like, that would have been perfect because they were just set the bottles outside of that bag and solved a big issue for me.

Yup, Yup. Yeah. We have a number of people doing that exact setup you just described.

So you guys were working in the machine shop, you were making accessories and the derailer optimization stuff and later that'd be Rad. But recently, and I'm not sure how recently you started your own bike brand. How did that happen? Come about.

Yeah. Yeah. So once again, we ride fat bikes four or five months a year. That's how it started. We started selling bikes about two years ago, I guess last month, two years ago in September. Um, so also is not that old. Um, for those that don't know a. So is a, it's a bite than our, I guess our slogan is born in the north woods. We try and build bikes around what, what the kind of writing one might do in the northwoods, whether that be northwoods of, of California, northwoods, Minnesota. I'm not, I'll call it not shredding bikes if, if that's a term that people know. I'm not downhill, not enduro. Um, these are more general cross country and gravel adventure bike. Uh, anyway, we, we ride fat bikes a lot here. Obviously. I've said that several times and I'm one of the big buggers that fat bikes is the q factors really wide.

I'm on the order of like an inch wider than a mountain bike and more than an inch wider than a road bike. And so, um, that really it can be hard on knees and hips if you spend a lot of time peddling the summer and then switched to this thing where your feet are way out. It puts a lot of strain on the inside of your knees. Um, and so we've been kicking around the idea. We'd seen some prototypes with people kicking around. The idea of using what was a, a and I guess still is a downhill standard. So that'd be um, in common terms. And 83 millimeter bottom bracket. I'm a road, it would be 68 millimeters a mountain would be 73 and this was 83. And then a fat bikes for 100. So you can see a kind of the step 73 would be typical mountain in 83 is what we retargeting and we'd seen some prototypes and we're like, you know what, I think we think we can do this.

And so I'm one of the enablers. They're doing it though was one by you can't do an 83 millimeter bottom bracket that bike, like we do our vojtech without committing to one by because everything's competing for the same space down there. So once we committed to one by which we were comfortable with because there are know we were both to to, to do, um, once we committed to one, by then it was a matter of doing the layouts and understanding the engineering. And then I'm working with a frame manufacturer there was willing to explore with us because there was challenges in the layup, you know, getting the chain stay right where it kind of goes between the crank arm and the chain ring gets pretty narrow. And so, uh, anyway, one thing led to another and I guess took about 20 months from when we started.

Mike might had business partner started to cad to when we launched. And then um, when we launched, we also, we ride a lot of gravel. I mentioned that too. And uh, the opportunity arose to do a production made in Taiwan, um, but production stainless steel bike and which has some unique properties that we appreciate around here, namely corrosion resistance. And so we pursued that as well because we had, as part of the fat bike, develop this rear dropouts system that allowed you to move the rear wheel around for different types of snow or different kinds of conditions. Some are writing, I'm shortening or lengthening the chain stays. Which law on the roadside lends itself to something like cyclocross geometry all the way through road touring geometry. By moving the rear wheel further away from the bottom bracket or closer to it. So we took that same technology, the same dropout, and put it on a stainless steel road bike so we can launch the company with both bikes, um, at the same time. So that was about two years ago.

And then subsequently you've added a third bike in the gravel category, is that right?

Yup. Yup. So in the most recent ad, um, we kind of, we tried to get it out last spring, but we missed it and because we were getting left few last things right, but there's new one really, uh, the word hasn't gotten out on it yet, but it's got some really interesting features that I think you're going to start to see in almost all gravel bikes. Um, first one is, it's built on a 420 millimeter exela crown. So that's how tall the fork is, if you will. So from the axle to you, the headset, um, traditional gravel cx, even road to a large extent is much smaller than that. Gravel cx. Excellent. The crown is usually around 400 millimeters. Um, ours is 420 and you might ask why a core 20? Well, it's not what you think

exactly

really because yeah, it's not that it's actually because the roads this road suspension forks, the MRP, um, the Fox and even the [inaudible] which is a strong spring forth, um, those all operate on a little higher exhale to crown. And so when you just plot those on, a normal bike is built around 400, it kind of prompts the bike up and changes the geometry and there's really no compromise to do in 420 x or the crown 400 is just kind of a legacy thing that just carried through. So we took a fresh look at it. So why are we doing $400 when and you need 420 to make these suspension forks have travel so they don't hit on the front wheel. So, so 420 x with the crown is one interesting feature. Has internal dropper routing maybe will become a thing. It's becoming more popular and drop our bikes. It's not going to be for everybody. Um, and then 29 by two point one tire clearance, um, that might sound like a lot, but you know, you go out and some of these back country roads up in the mountains and at 29 by two point one tire is not too much tire.

Now it gives you a ton of versatility is gone that wide.

It does, it does. But then, then you get the, the people argue, well that raise the bottom bracket too much and I'm like, trust me in situations where you need a tire that why'd you want to hire bottom bracket? You don't want, you don't want your pedal and inches from the ground. Um, and so that's going to be, that is the only bike out there that both that and the water can actually sit 29 by two point one tires. So those key features were engineered in and those aren't on most sites today. The other thing that we did with where he lives, we did a longer reach. The reason we did a longer reach, it's not to be longer, slacker, lower like all the enduro bikes. It's actually one of the reasons is just to get the size, the geometry between the small and medium and large and exhale to be the same.

So typically what you do on a small frame is you slacking the head tube a bit to make the, a toll her lap, not so bad on a small frame. So if you're stopped, you know, hit your front, you hit your toe on the front wheel. Um, it also creates a more stable handling bike across the board. That is the reason the enduro bikes are doing it because you get a more stable handling bike with a little shorter stem. But the front wheels further out, I think the count most common geometric term anymore as long front center, I'm talking about long front centers and long rear centers. But what that means is that the steer tube is just pushed a little further forward away from the seat from the seat post. Um, so you run a little shorter stem, but that gets the front wheel out there a little further, which makes her more stable handling, which on all road gravel, whatever you want to call it, adventure road is, is actually a good thing in a, in a, in a nutshell that you took a relook. We took a relook at everything that had been kind of leveraged that road and cyclocross that has driven what gravel is today and said most of that's right, but there are some things that we think should be a little different.

Yeah, it certainly feels like a very forward thinking bike and one of the areas where the several areas of things that you, you mentioned that have been hotly debated by previous guests on my podcast, specifically suspension in gravel bikes and drop receipt perse. So I'm interested to drill into your thoughts on suspension for gravel bikes because I think that's a bold positioning. Obviously you do have a rigid for that this bike is available with, but giving a couple of different suspension options I think is a bold choice. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah, the dropper posts thing, um, you know, I don't know for art types of gravel riding, we don't use those. I've been in situations on my mountain bike where I've been on gravel roads in the mountains. Again, for example, where a dropper posts would have been useful. There's no doubt if I would have been on a drop bar, bike out wanted one. Um, the challenge with dropper posts is durability. I'm the 27 two so far I haven't had the best record because you're smashing kind of the same internals and other smaller tube. Yep. And so, so that's been a challenge on the dropper side. It is a thing though, there's a lot of people doing it and there are people that say it's necessary and useful. Um, so that's why it's in our bike. Um, and having that, having that option doesn't hurt anything. I mean I can understand the debate about maybe wanting it or not wanting it, but having it as a feature should provides no detriment.

Yeah. It's certainly terrain specific. I know, again, who have heard me talk about dropper posts, I'm sold. I don't have one yet, but I do believe in in my. My area of riding here in Marin County, I could definitely use it.

Yeah, you definitely can.

No doubt about descending download, whatever, and similarly I do believe that suspension will hold a place in some gravel writers future. Again, depending on your terrain, I understand if your idea of gravel riding or mixed terrain is just kind of light fire roads, but if you get into some serious terrain, just like on a mountain bike, the full front suspension fork is going to allow you to go faster and likely more safely.

Yeah. I think honestly, as silly as this sounds, the thing that's going to drive suspension into gravel is going to be a good looking for work

afford like an inverted arm. Think about like a cut down rs one. Like if you saw it at nine or dual suspension, gravel bike, they did something like that cut down rs one that looks kind of normal on a drop our bike. I honestly, I honestly think that's one of the biggest holdups because we had the Fox on there and we had it set up with um, one by, with Shimano and the left shift or was set up as a remote lockout. It was sweet. Yeah. Had everything you needed at your fingertips. I mean like you could lock it out as completely rigid breaking bumps coming. You flipped the left shift there, but it still look like a mountain bike park. It functions, it functions great. It does everything great other than it looks like a mountain bike parking. That's a hurdle that I'm not sure the general gravel crowd is willing to give up yet.

Yeah, it's been a theme that's come up on the last couple of podcasts and I totally agree with you. I think the gravel market tends to draw its biggest base from roadies and roadies came with a very specific aesthetic in their mind and uh, even it's going to take awhile. I think once the performance attributes of suspension forks and dropper posts, and maybe the aesthetics, as you mentioned on the suspension side, come around, there's really going to be no reason not to have them on your bike.

Yeah, I mean if, if, if it looks, if it's a 40 millimeter micro suspension that looks mostly like a fork and you're not a weight weaning, um, it would be faster even even in some races where you're mostly gravel, maybe a 30 Kanza for example. I'm guessing over the long, long haul, a lot of writers will be faster if they're more comfortable.

Yeah.

Pedaling those forks, those forks don't move there too and they're tuned the right way. They won't move when you're seated pedaling. Um, and then you flick a switch, hopefully a left lever or some kind of lever when you stand up and it's rigid. Yeah. Um, so we're just not there yet. But the, the point of the bike was we had to get the bike geometry there because when that comes out is not going to be a 400 accidents crown. That's going to be 4:20 and 4:30, whatever it wants to be, but

yeah, I think it's going to be a part, uh, involve writers coming to the conclusion that gravel is actually their primary use of a bike, not as secondary use in addition to their road bike or mountain bike.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think that will be a. If they want to have one bike, having the suspension on there and the extra weight will be a difficult one for them to overcome. Now that said, nothing to say. I mean on the Vojtech we'd put a suspension fork on there in the summer and we rided rigid and fat in the winter. Nothing to say you can have a rigid fork and a suspension for kind of gravel bike too.

Yeah. Are you seeing any of the oem fork manufacturers kind of a approach the market and the way you've described. I know the Lao fork in it of itself just a little bit of a different beast, but is, is fairly lightweight as it is, but with Fox and some of the other fork manufacturers are people looking at gravel and, and thinking about 20, 19, 20, 20 with some more gravel specific suspension.

I gotta think they are, but I can't want, I can't comment to the, you know, being an oem customer on what, what's coming, but um, I hope so. I mean, I think it's a market that's ripe for that. Um, I just don't know when that's gonna happen.

Yeah. It's probably a one more than an f at this point. Given the current trends around gravel bikes.

Yeah. I mean you'll know about probably six months before because you'll see teaser images on instagram or something like that.

Yeah. And going back to the dropper post comments, actually no. You make a couple of cool nifty adapters for drop bar graph, a dropper post activation. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah. We have a remote lever that's really a successful mountain bike product for wolf too, but we also make one that mounts on the, um, the road bike up by the, uh, the, that, the, uh, the stem and um, and allows you to activate your dropper post. We are, we didn't tie something back, uh, about, I guess it was last winter bikes, enl support 10 or 15 months ago. Um, there was a bar end dropper post activation and you might see that come to production here real soon.

Okay. Well you'll definitely have to keep us posted on that. I'm keen to see that kind of stuff. As the said, they'll, they'll soon be a dropper posts in my future.

Yeah, we played when and then when we showed that it got teased on, it was on bike rumor and then there's all kinds of like, oh, that's the worst place. So that's the best place in like we've played with and I've seen where others have put the remotes for their road droppers. And first of all there's not a perfect place for it. I'm the perfect place would be a left lever on a one, but the proposition of gutting a hydraulic lever to get the, the Paul's out of it, if you will, you know, the clicking mechanism is a tall, tall order and so it's difficult to make the left shift at work unless it's a dedicated left shifted dropper. Post activator smells only exists. And then on the mechanical side we do know people that have got it on, but when you're talking like a hydraulic disc brakes left shifter, um, other than that, the Ambar end ended up being the best position. So you'll see if you search on bike room or in the internet, you'll see what, what we had shown at the show. But, uh, basically that's the next best spot for ergonomics, for safety, you know, not moving your hands too far. All of that.

Yeah. And being able to at least keep it on one part of the bar while you're activating it, I think it's going to be important.

Yeah. Not Getting in the way of your critical hand position spots.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's exciting to see the industry continue to innovate and have you guys fill the pockets where there's a short term need, but also look at creating longterm sustainable products. So I appreciate you spending time with us today.

Yeah, well thanks for having me. It's always, always something to talk to you and glad to gladly come on again, if you ever would like to see

come up. Well we'll put links to all the products we've talked about in the podcast notes and make sure everybody knows where to find you to see if any of these teas products come out and definitely I want people to take a look at the auto bike because I think it's a really. It's a good looking bike. It's got some unique attributes to it and clearly you guys are super thoughtful about what you're doing.

All right, Brendan, thanks for joining us on the podcast this week. I'm really excited to get to know wolf tooth and also a little bit better today. Yeah, thanks for having me. I always like starting out by learning a little bit more about you as a writer and since you're a, a, an owner of a company, I'd love to learn just a little bit more about how the company started.

Yeah, well I guess I'll talk about the three of us that started together. Um, Mike is the original founder and Dan and I joined him, uh, about a month or two after he started at Mike's. Been racing 20 or 25 years in cross country avid mountain bike, rabid sat biker Dan, my other business partner is a more of a distance guy. He'd done. I did a bike or I did a rod, I guess he's done the arrowhead 1:35 half a dozen times during the Baja divide, you know, just all kinds of crazy long distance stuff. And then, um, I come from an SCC race background erased ECC pro level, like c for about 10 or 12 years and still dabble in some racing, but, uh, given the business and growing children, I haven't been doing quite as much as they used to. So, so we kind of come from a bit of a diverse set of, uh, a writing background, um, which brings a lot to the table when we start talking about out. So

yeah, absolutely. And did you guys have an engineering background professionally?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, so we all came from the tech world, um, engineers and tech. Mike and I worked in a automation engineering department, so we basically designed robots that built a hard disk drives and then Dan was on the design side of the hard disk drive, so designing the intricate details of a hard disk drive and all the mechanical features. So we all worked together doing this and um, had a passion for riding road at lunch together, that kind of thing. And always talked about bike parts and maybe deficiencies in some and things we liked and didn't like. And um, and that's where the passion started and then an opportunity came to give this a go and we jumped at it.

What was the problem that you guys saw initially? What was the first product?

The very first product was actually a chain ring, a wide narrow chain ring for a fat bike, um, because we here in Minnesota, we're forced to ride bikes four or five months a year. And so mike design that up and I started testing it and it's about the same time that [inaudible] came out and we really felt that one by was a key, um, technology for fat bikes because front railers tended to not work with snow and ice. And so that was the first product. And then what actions actually the biggest product for the company that Kinda really got us off ground was those cassette extenders. And um, back when people were just starting to go one by and adding the 42 to two, their 10 speed. And uh, you know, at this point we basically don't sell any of those anymore. The oems have largely answered that large wide range cassette question. But uh, so those are the two kind of first products that got us off the ground while we were still working our day jobs, packet packet, ca technology hard this rep company.

And was that derailleur extension piece, was that something that originally was solving a problem that you were seeing in the fat bike world specifically or, or any one by setup?

Well, so there was the cassette extender, so it's actually a cassette cog that went behind the cassette was the first product later we did follow up with a, a derailleur extension piece to help help that work better. Um, but that was just a cassette piece that honestly it was pretty ubiquitous no matter where you lived in the mountains or you lived in the flat, he lived in the flat so you could just run a bigger chain ring. And at the time, remember the cassettes were only 1136 was the biggest right now, you know, now we're talking 10:50 AM, 10:51 in the case of Shimano new 12 speed. Uh, the 1136 sounds absolutely teeny, like a road or gravel or something.

I think that's absolutely where I first came to become aware of, uh, was in that I was running my niner gravel bike and I always needed more gears and someone came up to me and said, you know, you don't have to change the derailleur, you can just get this little part by this company in Minnesota and it can solve all your problems.

Yeah. All the problems.

Maybe not the problems with my lack of horsepower at times, but you youth it not me a man. Well that's great. That's a really interesting origin story. And then presumably as you guys acquired more equipment and sophomore or opportunity, you just sort of let your engineering minds grow wild. And I've seen you kind of pick a lot of problem opportunities across the cycling space to tackle with your unique componentry.

Yeah. Yeah. So we, uh, from the beginning we had a lot more ideas than those are just the two products that kind of allowed us to launch the company. But very quickly just knowing that oems are going to make wide range cassettes, which they do now today. And knowing that there's going to be other challenges, we'd with a derailleur optimization, all that stuff. We quickly moved into the things that like our be Rad system and some of these more innovative standalone products that aren't tied to necessarily somebody cassette or somebody is derailleur. Um, so that's something we did very early on with foresight to all products have a finite life when we need to go specifically probably only had three to four year run rate. So.

Right. Yeah. What a step back. I definitely want to get into the be rad system. But with respects to gearing for gravel riding, you'd mentioned sort of your excitement, enthusiasm behind. No one by trend. Do you see that continuing across kind of all segments of cycling or GC, the roadies still retaining to buy as you know, the predominant option?

It's an interesting and kind of polarizing question on the road. Um, I think it's less, less so on a gravel and then not at all in the mountains. The mountains by rights all switched to one by. I know there's some still some holdouts, and I'm not saying everybody has to go one bike because it gives people, some people pretty worked up, but uh, and then on gravel, honestly having a little, a little wider range cassette, I think you've found it extremely useful. Um, you know, you end up with these little corn cob cassettes, I call him like 11, 25, you end up with double shifts anyway. Most of the time on gravel road is going to be a bit more of a challenge and you know, just just a frame road for a second. The number of usable actual years on a double. A typical double setup is about 14. So you know, where we're at right now, we're at 12 speed right now. Right, right. And so you could see a way to 13 speed in the near future, I'm guessing on the road. Um, and so if you got the 13 speed, could you fudge those bigger three cars and not upset roadies and have small enough jumps in the small causes? Maybe that's what it's going to take though.

Yeah, I think you're right. I, I, I struggled a bit, so I've bought my last spike two years ago and I had made the decision that I was going to buy one bike that was gonna replace my road bike and gravel bike and all the research I pointed to lead me to believe yeah, there were some nuances that I would lose and going to a one by. And so I elected to go to a two by simply because I was trying to purely replaced my road bike and I've largely been happy with it. But one of the things that I have come to realize that know, which is probably obvious in retrospect was that the one by a drive train off road is just so much quieter without, uh, you know, the longer chain and the front trailer on there that there's, to me a real advantage there and any disadvantage I was perceiving or loss of, you know, gear subtlety really hasn't manifested itself in the way I feared it would.

No, you got to remember though, there is really high level road racing and there's the time where it can get annoying. Basically if you're in a group road ride and you know, the, the um, the speed is changing subtly and you want to shift, just barely shifted gear to keep your cadence at a certain level or people that have spent years and years on road bikes and expecting that one tooth cog difference, that those are the people that'll be the last hold outs and honestly it'll take 14 speed's probably to convert them.

And uh, do you still have a road bike in your garage?

Not the kind with skinny tires.

The skinny tires I have on right now are $38, I think 38 because honestly with, with cell phones, um, I avoid at all costs that a personal impact. All of us, pretty much everybody on staff here does. I don't. There's maybe one or two guys that do group road rides anymore. Yeah. But even then, like this time of year, they're, the group road rides shifts to gravel. Um, I was just out this weekend, this out this weekend for a cruise in several hours. I saw four cars unraveled and that was, it was bliss. It was blissful. Every time, every time I'm on the road, it's like, you know, white knuckles is, are they on their phone, are they drinking their coffee or you know, whatever. And uh, just not the fun relaxing experience I want when I'm out riding my bike.

Yeah. I'm always saying the same thing to my roadie hold out friends that they just don't know what they're missing. When you can get out there and get off the beaten path and not have to worry about cars at all. And you can just have pure peace during your rides.

Yeah. Yeah. You've come out and just like totally refreshed. Maybe. Maybe you're tired, but totally refreshed mentally and, and happy. I don't know how else to describe it. I, I'll feel after her gravel. Right. But just, just content and happy.

Yeah, I agree. I think it just, it plays on a number of different lover, the levers emotionally. When you're out there riding, you get the peace and solitude, but then you also get challenging sections where you felt glom onto something a little bit more tactical on your gravel bike and get your heart rate up.

Yeah. Yup. So it'll be, you know, if we get to 13 or 14 speeds, I think one by will make huge inroads into road and probably completely take over gravel.

Yeah, I think you're right. And then certainly on my next bike, which is upcoming and I'm definitely going to go the one by route and um, you know, any shortcomings, I spent so much time off road that they've road shortcomings aren't going to bother me whatsoever.

Right. And the interesting thing thing on the side that we've seen with, with gravel and road is that, um, it used to be all a lot of the chain rings we sold in the gravel and road segments square, 40 to 40, 38 meaning cyclocross racers and writers and now we're seeing a shift to a lot of $46 going out the door, which is kind of that sweet spot for the one by gravel with a wide range cassette or one by road with a wide range. So we are actually seeing it on the chain ring side too.

What type of cassette gear ratio or people matching to that? 40 six?

Um, typically it'd be 1140 Shimano cassettes are and that's our favorite, that's what we all run. They have nice, small, not small for roadies again, but smallish your steps, I'm relatively inexpensive cassettes, they're easy to get if it on hd driver. Um, so that's the most common one that we're seeing.

And what derailer systems does that put you into?

Well, for one by you can basically get any derailer to work if you're using our thriller optimization products, um, the road linker to go link or some of the trailers work natively with you had the 10 pan which allows road shifters to work with mountain bike rider railers, but basically the 1140 isn't too challenging to get to work from a one by perspective once the 1142 is a little more 10:42, and then once you get to 1146 you're really pretty much stuck with you than a mountain bike reader. Railer and your road shifters. Um, or in Graham's case, Ram actually has a, some wide range of solutions that work with that out of the box. So.

Right. Interesting. Well, shifting gears a little bit, let's talk about the [inaudible] system. I mentioned in my initial outreach to you. I had my first multiday bike packing experience and I recognize the shortcoming in my bottle setup, so I was interested to talk to you about the Rad and where that came from.

Oh boy. I don't know if I. I should let this out of the bag, but so be routed. Actually it stands for bottle, a relocation and accessory device, but the initial design for the very first came out of Iraq and scientists know Joe guy that works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory a. He happens to be my brother. Brad. Going to be Rad. Came from ice. No joke. He made he uh, yeah, he was A. Yeah, I don't think we've ever told this story. He was trying to move his bottle around a little bit on trying to remember. I think it was his ibis, maybe a Mojo. Um, anyway, he came up with this little kind of looks like the two that we sell today. We sell three different signaling for people that don't know, three different bases. Is that allow you to mount things on your bike and move bottles around you have to go to the website to see how it all works.

But he designed the smallest base, smallest of the three to be read to kind of. And it was actually, um, you know, something that I had seen and then one of my employees and uh, the guy that runs a machine shop unbeknownst to us and without asking, just went off and made a couple and I saw that and actually we had been working on some other, the double bottle thing where you can mount the two bottles side by side, which is some people laugh at. But uh, those that have tried it, no, it's pretty sweet. Um, if you need to throw more water, we'd had some prototypes around that, but that didn't really become a product until I saw the Rad. And I'm like, you know, the double bottles of product if it's an accessory to another system. And so we kind of put that together and started developing the different length basis.

Um, and then launched with this system with the three bases I'm mounting plate with a strap, then those bases and the double bottle. And so what this allowed you to do is mountain bottles up and down and move bottles around, knocked two bottles on mount these straps that held things on your bike and it really allowed gravel and adventure riders and even at cross country racers to too, I'd extend, gets stuff off their back and so, and then it's just grown from there and I'll go on there and there's, I think a 10 or 12 accessories you can buy for the system all based on these, these three bases that you can mount on your bike. Right. So that's how it started. It was, it was kind of an accident, um, and kind of something that we didn't prove the guy that was working on to work on, but we didn't stop them either.

Right. And then you found out it started working in and opening up some new possibilities.

Yeah, it was more like, hey, we had this other stuff that, oh yeah, if we took this and this together, it becomes a system and then, and then now here we are today.

Yeah, for those of you trying to visualize it, so you've got a base that mounts into your existing water bottle, water bottle, cage area, and then you can adjust where you attach your water bottle cage or accessory to a different area of your top two or sorry, happier. You're down tube. Um, which provides with the accessory mounts a unique way of adding multiple water bottle cages or pumping tube strap. A whole bunch of other accessories.

Yeah, yeah. The best way to go to the site and look at it, look at it because there's so many different ways. It's always kind of described it as the erector set of a bicycle accessory mounting because there's going to have tinkered with it for hours in my basement. Moving stuff around, especially with the bags and stuff we have now. And you can really hang in, jam a lot of stuff on your bike. And basically at this point I'm writing most of the time with just a cell phone in my pocket,

right? Yeah. And my bike packing setup, I had a sort of a quarter frame bag and I just needed the bottle cages to be exterior to that. And I looked at the two water bottle mountain. I was like, that would have been perfect because they were just set the bottles outside of that bag and solved a big issue for me.

Yup, Yup. Yeah. We have a number of people doing that exact setup you just described.

So you guys were working in the machine shop, you were making accessories and the derailer optimization stuff and later that'd be Rad. But recently, and I'm not sure how recently you started your own bike brand. How did that happen? Come about.

Yeah. Yeah. So once again, we ride fat bikes four or five months a year. That's how it started. We started selling bikes about two years ago, I guess last month, two years ago in September. Um, so also is not that old. Um, for those that don't know a. So is a, it's a bite than our, I guess our slogan is born in the north woods. We try and build bikes around what, what the kind of writing one might do in the northwoods, whether that be northwoods of, of California, northwoods, Minnesota. I'm not, I'll call it not shredding bikes if, if that's a term that people know. I'm not downhill, not enduro. Um, these are more general cross country and gravel adventure bike. Uh, anyway, we, we ride fat bikes a lot here. Obviously. I've said that several times and I'm one of the big buggers that fat bikes is the q factors really wide.

I'm on the order of like an inch wider than a mountain bike and more than an inch wider than a road bike. And so, um, that really it can be hard on knees and hips if you spend a lot of time peddling the summer and then switched to this thing where your feet are way out. It puts a lot of strain on the inside of your knees. Um, and so we've been kicking around the idea. We'd seen some prototypes with people kicking around. The idea of using what was a, a and I guess still is a downhill standard. So that'd be um, in common terms. And 83 millimeter bottom bracket. I'm a road, it would be 68 millimeters a mountain would be 73 and this was 83. And then a fat bikes for 100. So you can see a kind of the step 73 would be typical mountain in 83 is what we retargeting and we'd seen some prototypes and we're like, you know what, I think we think we can do this.

And so I'm one of the enablers. They're doing it though was one by you can't do an 83 millimeter bottom bracket that bike, like we do our vojtech without committing to one by because everything's competing for the same space down there. So once we committed to one by which we were comfortable with because there are know we were both to to, to do, um, once we committed to one, by then it was a matter of doing the layouts and understanding the engineering. And then I'm working with a frame manufacturer there was willing to explore with us because there was challenges in the layup, you know, getting the chain stay right where it kind of goes between the crank arm and the chain ring gets pretty narrow. And so, uh, anyway, one thing led to another and I guess took about 20 months from when we started.

Mike might had business partner started to cad to when we launched. And then um, when we launched, we also, we ride a lot of gravel. I mentioned that too. And uh, the opportunity arose to do a production made in Taiwan, um, but production stainless steel bike and which has some unique properties that we appreciate around here, namely corrosion resistance. And so we pursued that as well because we had, as part of the fat bike, develop this rear dropouts system that allowed you to move the rear wheel around for different types of snow or different kinds of conditions. Some are writing, I'm shortening or lengthening the chain stays. Which law on the roadside lends itself to something like cyclocross geometry all the way through road touring geometry. By moving the rear wheel further away from the bottom bracket or closer to it. So we took that same technology, the same dropout, and put it on a stainless steel road bike so we can launch the company with both bikes, um, at the same time. So that was about two years ago.

And then subsequently you've added a third bike in the gravel category, is that right?

Yup. Yup. So in the most recent ad, um, we kind of, we tried to get it out last spring, but we missed it and because we were getting left few last things right, but there's new one really, uh, the word hasn't gotten out on it yet, but it's got some really interesting features that I think you're going to start to see in almost all gravel bikes. Um, first one is, it's built on a 420 millimeter exela crown. So that's how tall the fork is, if you will. So from the axle to you, the headset, um, traditional gravel cx, even road to a large extent is much smaller than that. Gravel cx. Excellent. The crown is usually around 400 millimeters. Um, ours is 420 and you might ask why a core 20? Well, it's not what you think

exactly

really because yeah, it's not that it's actually because the roads this road suspension forks, the MRP, um, the Fox and even the [inaudible] which is a strong spring forth, um, those all operate on a little higher exhale to crown. And so when you just plot those on, a normal bike is built around 400, it kind of prompts the bike up and changes the geometry and there's really no compromise to do in 420 x or the crown 400 is just kind of a legacy thing that just carried through. So we took a fresh look at it. So why are we doing $400 when and you need 420 to make these suspension forks have travel so they don't hit on the front wheel. So, so 420 x with the crown is one interesting feature. Has internal dropper routing maybe will become a thing. It's becoming more popular and drop our bikes. It's not going to be for everybody. Um, and then 29 by two point one tire clearance, um, that might sound like a lot, but you know, you go out and some of these back country roads up in the mountains and at 29 by two point one tire is not too much tire.

Now it gives you a ton of versatility is gone that wide.

It does, it does. But then, then you get the, the people argue, well that raise the bottom bracket too much and I'm like, trust me in situations where you need a tire that why'd you want to hire bottom bracket? You don't want, you don't want your pedal and inches from the ground. Um, and so that's going to be, that is the only bike out there that both that and the water can actually sit 29 by two point one tires. So those key features were engineered in and those aren't on most sites today. The other thing that we did with where he lives, we did a longer reach. The reason we did a longer reach, it's not to be longer, slacker, lower like all the enduro bikes. It's actually one of the reasons is just to get the size, the geometry between the small and medium and large and exhale to be the same.

So typically what you do on a small frame is you slacking the head tube a bit to make the, a toll her lap, not so bad on a small frame. So if you're stopped, you know, hit your front, you hit your toe on the front wheel. Um, it also creates a more stable handling bike across the board. That is the reason the enduro bikes are doing it because you get a more stable handling bike with a little shorter stem. But the front wheels further out, I think the count most common geometric term anymore as long front center, I'm talking about long front centers and long rear centers. But what that means is that the steer tube is just pushed a little further forward away from the seat from the seat post. Um, so you run a little shorter stem, but that gets the front wheel out there a little further, which makes her more stable handling, which on all road gravel, whatever you want to call it, adventure road is, is actually a good thing in a, in a, in a nutshell that you took a relook. We took a relook at everything that had been kind of leveraged that road and cyclocross that has driven what gravel is today and said most of that's right, but there are some things that we think should be a little different.

Yeah, it certainly feels like a very forward thinking bike and one of the areas where the several areas of things that you, you mentioned that have been hotly debated by previous guests on my podcast, specifically suspension in gravel bikes and drop receipt perse. So I'm interested to drill into your thoughts on suspension for gravel bikes because I think that's a bold positioning. Obviously you do have a rigid for that this bike is available with, but giving a couple of different suspension options I think is a bold choice. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah, the dropper posts thing, um, you know, I don't know for art types of gravel riding, we don't use those. I've been in situations on my mountain bike where I've been on gravel roads in the mountains. Again, for example, where a dropper posts would have been useful. There's no doubt if I would have been on a drop bar, bike out wanted one. Um, the challenge with dropper posts is durability. I'm the 27 two so far I haven't had the best record because you're smashing kind of the same internals and other smaller tube. Yep. And so, so that's been a challenge on the dropper side. It is a thing though, there's a lot of people doing it and there are people that say it's necessary and useful. Um, so that's why it's in our bike. Um, and having that, having that option doesn't hurt anything. I mean I can understand the debate about maybe wanting it or not wanting it, but having it as a feature should provides no detriment.

Yeah. It's certainly terrain specific. I know, again, who have heard me talk about dropper posts, I'm sold. I don't have one yet, but I do believe in in my. My area of riding here in Marin County, I could definitely use it.

Yeah, you definitely can.

No doubt about descending download, whatever, and similarly I do believe that suspension will hold a place in some gravel writers future. Again, depending on your terrain, I understand if your idea of gravel riding or mixed terrain is just kind of light fire roads, but if you get into some serious terrain, just like on a mountain bike, the full front suspension fork is going to allow you to go faster and likely more safely.

Yeah. I think honestly, as silly as this sounds, the thing that's going to drive suspension into gravel is going to be a good looking for work

afford like an inverted arm. Think about like a cut down rs one. Like if you saw it at nine or dual suspension, gravel bike, they did something like that cut down rs one that looks kind of normal on a drop our bike. I honestly, I honestly think that's one of the biggest holdups because we had the Fox on there and we had it set up with um, one by, with Shimano and the left shift or was set up as a remote lockout. It was sweet. Yeah. Had everything you needed at your fingertips. I mean like you could lock it out as completely rigid breaking bumps coming. You flipped the left shift there, but it still look like a mountain bike park. It functions, it functions great. It does everything great other than it looks like a mountain bike parking. That's a hurdle that I'm not sure the general gravel crowd is willing to give up yet.

Yeah, it's been a theme that's come up on the last couple of podcasts and I totally agree with you. I think the gravel market tends to draw its biggest base from roadies and roadies came with a very specific aesthetic in their mind and uh, even it's going to take awhile. I think once the performance attributes of suspension forks and dropper posts, and maybe the aesthetics, as you mentioned on the suspension side, come around, there's really going to be no reason not to have them on your bike.

Yeah, I mean if, if, if it looks, if it's a 40 millimeter micro suspension that looks mostly like a fork and you're not a weight weaning, um, it would be faster even even in some races where you're mostly gravel, maybe a 30 Kanza for example. I'm guessing over the long, long haul, a lot of writers will be faster if they're more comfortable.

Yeah.

Pedaling those forks, those forks don't move there too and they're tuned the right way. They won't move when you're seated pedaling. Um, and then you flick a switch, hopefully a left lever or some kind of lever when you stand up and it's rigid. Yeah. Um, so we're just not there yet. But the, the point of the bike was we had to get the bike geometry there because when that comes out is not going to be a 400 accidents crown. That's going to be 4:20 and 4:30, whatever it wants to be, but

yeah, I think it's going to be a part, uh, involve writers coming to the conclusion that gravel is actually their primary use of a bike, not as secondary use in addition to their road bike or mountain bike.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think that will be a. If they want to have one bike, having the suspension on there and the extra weight will be a difficult one for them to overcome. Now that said, nothing to say. I mean on the Vojtech we'd put a suspension fork on there in the summer and we rided rigid and fat in the winter. Nothing to say you can have a rigid fork and a suspension for kind of gravel bike too.

Yeah. Are you seeing any of the oem fork manufacturers kind of a approach the market and the way you've described. I know the Lao fork in it of itself just a little bit of a different beast, but is, is fairly lightweight as it is, but with Fox and some of the other fork manufacturers are people looking at gravel and, and thinking about 20, 19, 20, 20 with some more gravel specific suspension.

I gotta think they are, but I can't want, I can't comment to the, you know, being an oem customer on what, what's coming, but um, I hope so. I mean, I think it's a market that's ripe for that. Um, I just don't know when that's gonna happen.

Yeah. It's probably a one more than an f at this point. Given the current trends around gravel bikes.

Yeah. I mean you'll know about probably six months before because you'll see teaser images on instagram or something like that.

Yeah. And going back to the dropper post comments, actually no. You make a couple of cool nifty adapters for drop bar graph, a dropper post activation. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah. We have a remote lever that's really a successful mountain bike product for wolf too, but we also make one that mounts on the, um, the road bike up by the, uh, the, that, the, uh, the stem and um, and allows you to activate your dropper post. We are, we didn't tie something back, uh, about, I guess it was last winter bikes, enl support 10 or 15 months ago. Um, there was a bar end dropper post activation and you might see that come to production here real soon.

Okay. Well you'll definitely have to keep us posted on that. I'm keen to see that kind of stuff. As the said, they'll, they'll soon be a dropper posts in my future.

Yeah, we played when and then when we showed that it got teased on, it was on bike rumor and then there's all kinds of like, oh, that's the worst place. So that's the best place in like we've played with and I've seen where others have put the remotes for their road droppers. And first of all there's not a perfect place for it. I'm the perfect place would be a left lever on a one, but the proposition of gutting a hydraulic lever to get the, the Paul's out of it, if you will, you know, the clicking mechanism is a tall, tall order and so it's difficult to make the left shift at work unless it's a dedicated left shifted dropper. Post activator smells only exists. And then on the mechanical side we do know people that have got it on, but when you're talking like a hydraulic disc brakes left shifter, um, other than that, the Ambar end ended up being the best position. So you'll see if you search on bike room or in the internet, you'll see what, what we had shown at the show. But, uh, basically that's the next best spot for ergonomics, for safety, you know, not moving your hands too far. All of that.

Yeah. And being able to at least keep it on one part of the bar while you're activating it, I think it's going to be important.

Yeah. Not Getting in the way of your critical hand position spots.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's exciting to see the industry continue to innovate and have you guys fill the pockets where there's a short term need, but also look at creating longterm sustainable products. So I appreciate you spending time with us today.

Yeah, well thanks for having me. It's always, always something to talk to you and glad to gladly come on again, if you ever would like to see

come up. Well we'll put links to all the products we've talked about in the podcast notes and make sure everybody knows where to find you to see if any of these teas products come out and definitely I want people to take a look at the auto bike because I think it's a really. It's a good looking bike. It's got some unique attributes to it and clearly you guys are super thoughtful about what you're doing.

Hello everyone, this week I want to welcome Ben Edwards from Peloton magazine to the podcast. Ben, thanks for joining us.

No problem. Thank you for having me and having a having to the Peloton gravel, Bob and Peloton magazine on the show.

Yeah. I'm excited to dig in with you. I always like to start by giving our listeners a little bit of understanding about your background as a cyclist, your current sort of gravel interests and because he worked for Peloton magazine. Love to hear a little bit about how you arrived at Peloton.

Yeah, sure. Well, I, I got into bike racing as a kid in high school. I played water polo and a kid showed up on pool deck with a road bike and he was wearing tights and we all kind of made fun of him, but in the back of my head I'm thinking that looks really cool and I want to do that. And my dad had a background as a cyclist, so once I told them I was interested then it was. It was full gas and I spent a lot of years racing is a junior track racing, a lot of team pursuit, a points race, stuff like that. And then really, um, after I was about 21 I realized I was not going to win the Tour de France. And so I, I went to school and I didn't touch the bike for almost 10 years. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, my wife, when I was 30, bought me a road bike. I took one look at it and I said, uh, oh, we're in trouble. I just, I felt that, uh, that passion just immediately explode. And uh, yeah, it was in the movie business. And so I started doing a lot of, um, lot of film work in the cycling industry. And I started a website called [inaudible] dot com where we did a lot of bike reviews. And, uh, and from there I met Brad Rowe, who is our publisher at Peloton magazine. I met Tim Shamburg, who's our creative director, and those guys were itching to do a different kind of cycling magazine and they invited me to come on board and, uh, enjoying the party and that was eight years ago, eight years ago when we founded Peloton magazine, along with Adam, rick and Robert Rex and, um, man's been 80. We're on working on her 80th issue now. It's just hard to believe because it still feels so fresh and fun. But yeah, eight years ago, working on her 80th issue now.

That's amazing. For those of you who haven't seen Peloton magazine, I definitely encourage you to go out and grab an issue really beautifully done. Every time I have an a, every time I receive an issue, I'm just inspired to ride. I think you guys do an amazing job of capturing the visual aspects of cycling and it just makes you want to kind of get suited up and go out the door.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Or um, you know, our goal with Peloton really was we didn't do a lot of focus groups. We didn't try and think what do people want to see, we just did what we wanted to see and luckily people agree with us, so we had a really fun ride for eight years and this will be our biggest year yet. Um, so, so nothing but, uh, on the web. It's looking really good.

That's awesome. And it seems to me that Peloton seized on the gravel cycling scene pretty early on and has really done a lot to kind of promote gravel within the pages in the magazine.

Yeah, I think that gets back to what I just mentioned, that when we just saw something we liked and we were interested in, we didn't worry if it was going to be a fit or if a drop bar magazine should be doing something in the dirt. We just thought it was cool and we just knew we were doing a lot of it on our own and we wanted to make it part of the magazine. I've always been at a mountain bike riding and mountain bike racing than a lot of that. And um, it was a great way to one, get dirt riding in Peloton magazine, which is really a drop bar, road magazine, and it was also, you know, I mean, I think it's everyone knows who rides gravel it, it's an incredible way to sort of reinvent writing territory. You may cite, you thought you knew well, you know, loops that were not possible on a road bike or not a lot of fun on a mountain bike because there was a bunch of road sections or is all just fire road are suddenly unlocked on a gravel bike. Eh, you know, in a way that's really inspiring. And, and I'm good, like I said, reinvents areas that people thought they knew. Well there's, there's new rides to be had.

Yeah. I think for me, as I've said many times on this podcast, it's really drawn me back into cycling. Just that idea that I can create these mixed terrain loops and travel all over marine county, avoid the cars and see the beautiful scenery. It's just, it gets me out riding, which is super exciting about the gravel scene.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and that's, that's a huge part of it is getting just out of traffic, you know, my wife, she asked me, are you going for a ride where you going? And if I say I'm writing gravel, she kind of breathes a sigh of relief and goes, have fun.

I never thought of that. But it's so true. I'm curious for your, from your perspective in the industry and as somebody who's been on the both the road and mountain side, what, what part of the sport, if, if you had to, if you had to say from the road side or the mountain side, do you think gravel is drawing more athletes from?

Well that's a great question. Um, I, I would say probably from the road side right now because, you know, a lot of the guys who were on mountain mountain is so segmented anyway, so segmented. Anyway, there's so many guys that are downhill and so many guys that are all mountain an enduro. And, and I do think a fair amount of the equity guys, the cross country guys have found gravel riding gravel racing. Um, but I just know so many friends that are just dedicated roadies that just their eyes have just been opened up by gravel riding and what's possible and they're so excited about the equipment and about trying to find the right gravel setup for them. Um, and it's a lot of things, you know, talking about tire pressure and tire size. You're riding that mountain. Bikers are familiar with that kind of conversation and for a lot of roadies it's very new and so it's really, um, it energizes them in a way that I don't think, um, they have been for awhile.

Yeah. I tend to agree with you. It's something I've been pondering for a little bit now because I do think that more roadies are discovering gravel then mountain bike guys, for all the reasons you just described and I think it's having an effect on the equipment in the space as well because I think a lot of the equipment manufacturers came from that road plus mindset versus a mountain bike mindset. And we're starting to see the influence with the bigger tire bikes like open and thesis and a bunch of other bikes out there that are really starting to look at it from more of a cross country mountain bike perspective and add the road elements on it rather than a road perspective and add the dirt elements on it.

Yeah, I think that's. I think that's very true. You sort of look at a gravel product right now and to me it always falls into two categories. It falls into sort of gravel survival, which when you look like sauces cycles, that's something like maybe a, a, a cutthroat, you know, it's a little more relaxed, tons of tire volume. It's also great adventure bike. And if you're going to try and knock out cancer and you know, you're going to be out there for a long time and just want to survive and be comfy. So perfect bike. And then there's sort of that gravel race side of things, you know. And that's um, that's like a salsa warbird, you know, something where you're gonna run a smaller tire as you can. You're really going to try and run light and you know, I want to be controversial, but some of the guys were put an arrow bars on these things now. So they're sort of. To me, there's two sides. There's gravel survival in gravel race and those products are starting to differentiate.

Yeah. I buy that. United had mentioned before on the pod that I originally got interested in gravel from the bike packing side of things and I was seeing. I was just interested in following races, like the tour divide and not that I had done much of that myself, but I started to look at those bikes in the types of adventures that they were designed for and as someone who probably aligns himself more as a mountain biker than a roadie. There was a, there was an instant appeal to me. Um, and so you see the bikes, like what salsa was doing with the drop bars that were, could have a lot of carrying capacity and they were built for the, for the tour divide. And then you started seeing the other side of the spectrum where it was just sort of these road plus bikes that may be, could get out to a 38 tire Max. Um, so I liked those two categories as you define it. And clearly there's no right or wrong answer. I think it's an interesting discussion to continue to have with lots of people because as my listeners are trying to figure out what bikes are they going to buy to get into the sport, these are the types of things I think you have to grapple with. It's sort of like, are you just going to kind of get off the beaten path from time to time or is it going to be primarily dirt?

Yeah, yeah, no doubt. I think, um, you're talking about those bikes where you can get up to a 38, right? That's, you can write that on the club ride with us at 28 mil tires. Put the 38th on it and you got a great bike for gravel worlds or, or the Peloton gravel mob. But you might want something a little different if you're looking at crusher or you're looking at at a dirty Kanza. But that's again, I think one of the things that energizes people is it's really tough to say what's the right bike for a specific course because you're sort of always making a compromise somewhere. You're compromising on the fast section. If you go with bigger tires and you're more laid back, you're compromising on the more technical sections if you're trying to run a real fast, narrow tire setup. So that's the equation that everyone gets to wrestle with when they are signing up for these events and trying to, you know, trying to build their right bike.

That's a great segue because I want to talk about the gravel mob event that is coming up. Sure. It's actually one of my favorite events. As I mentioned to you before. I think I'll be on my third edition this year when I come down and on it to me captures all the elements of a great gravel ride. It's got great adventure. It brought me way off the beaten path that never written any of that terrain. And the first time I had been down there, and Ohi I hated my bike at one point and I love to add another point. I wait all day long for that ripping single track at the end. I'm going to tell you that right now because I'm the guy who rides the fat tires and I'm dragging up hill, but when I get there, boy, Oh boy, I am cruising down there and finding the guys who elected to be on 28 suffering through that tiny last section of the course.

Yup, Yup. Yeah, absolutely. That, that is a, our Howard creek descent off the ridge line. It's definitely something that the, uh, the event has become known for.

So tell us how the event started. I know you're linked up with a great shop down there and Ohi and a lot of great sponsors. I just love to hear about how it all got started.

Yeah. Well, so it's our fifth year doing this when we did it with a mob shop in Ohio, uh, one of the owners of the mob shop, Tim Rowen is my co race director. So we pretty much, you know, um, it's, it's pretty equal load there in terms of the, the entire creation of the race, um, and, and running it itself. So we, uh, went six years ago, we had a Peloton cross, we were doing a cross race out at Lake Casitas here in Ohio and we decided the next year, hey, on Sunday after the cross race, let's do a gravel ride and let's go ahead and kind of create this course that we think shows off the best of, of gravel riding in Ohi and sort of Ventura county. And we realized pretty quickly that, uh, it was a lot more fun too in that gravel race. Then I'm at the crossroads and we love cross, but hearts were gravel, gravel is where our heart is.

So we transitioned into just making the Palatine graebel mob, um, our focus and definitely have not regretted that. And we've had some amazing sponsors come on to support the event and just support gravel writing in general. Pattern racer has been a sponsor since year one. And then make the gravel cane, which is just, they have a bunch of great options for the ride and the gravel cane, whether you're ride in the SK or one of the file treads is perfect. Easton came on last year and Craig Ritchie, who runs their marketing program, he was in the lead group all day. I'm that guy is crazy fit. He'll be back racing again. A goo comes out, good nutrition, you rehearse while day. Kansas Champ. He comes out and he leads a ride the day before and then he crushes it on the course again. And Salsa cycles coming back for that second year. Those guys have been amazing support. And uh, we're giving away a warbird again this year in our December issue. If people saw that ultimate bike build we did last year, that was all salsa. All Easton. I'm pattern racer. And then we're really super excited because Wa who's coming on board this year as our official gps sponsor. So, uh, if you know our, our raffle at the end, which is about as important as the race itself for us a while it will be a part of that as well.

That's awesome. I'm looking forward to it. I, I've been lucky two years in a row. I've walked away with something awesome. So I'm stoked for that. So I know you said you wanted, you guys wanted to kind of just create a course that took a good hard look at all the disciplines within gravel and providing a sort of an option of pushing your limits regardless of what your strengths are. So if we chop up the course, I know we've got a couple of climbs in there, a couple of good descents. Can you talk a little bit more specifically about the course and what people should expect?

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean overall the course is 58 miles. So when people think about a gravel riding, oh, that's short. And it is, it is short for a short program, programmable ride and part of that's very intentional. We want people to enjoy the party after and hang out for a long time, you know, we got tacos and beer and like I said, the greater the raffle after. So that's as important as the race to us is that community feeling after an in sharing those stories from the course. But uh, we started out, the first big, big obstacle is called Sulfur Mountain. It's a monster monster climb that is in the neighborhood of eight miles, but it's really like super highway dirt fire road. And so that's where the first group group goes away, is right on there. Um, after that, the next big climb is called CSR and a CIS. Our road is a beast. It's really steep through a creek bed at the beginning. But again, fire road, couple of water crossings, it looks like there'll be a little wet this year and that's another super, super long long climb because overall there's 8,000 feet of climbing on the course.

Yeah, that's. This is our climate is definitely. I think it's part obviously that it's in the latter half of the race and you've already climbed sulfur mountain, but there's something about it that I think, well, for me it was just very taxing. I think it's this super steep pitches and a couple of years I've been down there, it's been super hot. Uh, so people were just melting away on that climb.

Yeah. Did you get one of the popsicles?

I just have a night. I was just going to mention that. I mean towards the, towards the aid station, at the top of the climb, this, this young volunteers running down with shaking something in his hands and he asked do you want a popsicle? And I honestly like didn't know if my brain was working correctly, if I'm truly answering the right question. Absolutely. I want to

popsicle. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And there'll be popsicles, oncourse again, don't worry. Yeah. So that climb, it's eight miles long and it's over 3000 feet of climbing. So it's, it's a big ask, although this year, and we can talk about this a little more when we get to Howard trail. So there's some big updates there. We had the Thomas fire come through in December, which really scorched all of Ohio and you're going to get a front row seat to seeing what happened with the Thomas fire in the back country of Ohio on this ride. But because of that, the bottom of Sister Canyon road, which used to be the most technical section of the course is beautiful smooth dirt. So I did a facebook post earlier this week. Um, if Neil Shirley's Koom is to fall, it's going to be this year because the bottom of the course is so fast right now

that that could have a huge impact. I mean, I, that's, that part of that climb sticks in my memory every year as something that sort of piece pick male your way through. And a lot of people were getting off and walking. So I, I think, uh, our friend Neil may have some challenges in that. Keeping that KLM.

Yeah, the time is not so fast, but if it's going to be done it'll be, it'll be this year. But then after you get to the top of sis are you get to what I think is the signature moment of the race itself, which is the North Ridge road. It's just this beautiful eight mile long, gorgeous gravel road across the spine of the Topa Topa mountains. And you're at over 4,000 feet. You have unbelievable, unbelievable views out to the Pacific Ocean. You're looking into the CSP wilderness left to your right. We think it's the best gravel road in America. And uh, and to me it's a signature part of the ride itself, getting getting our field up there and enjoy. And that is incredible.

Yeah, no, there's definitely spectacular views. I spent a little bit more time last year up there than I had planned as my good good riding buddy. Todd got a flat and we had a hell of a time getting his tire unseated off the rim and changing out. So we were probably sitting around for 10, 10 minutes looking at that view as we were begging for extra tire leavers from riders that came by and eventually got it, got it corrected. And the good thing about where we were located was a few miles further down the trail. We came to the next aid station where I got the second surprising offer of the day.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So yeah. Are Our final aid station of the day is right at the entrance to that single track descent you referenced earlier. Uh, Howard Howard creek trail. And um, this event is kind of run like a family event. So a lot of the people up there are my brother, my sister in law. My kid probably ran down to give you the popsicle. And so what my, my brother and sister in law, I do at that third aid station. It's not officially sanctioned by the event, but rumor has it if you need it to kill a shot before you dropped down Howard, you can have a tequila shot before you dropped down. Howard?

Yes. Ed recollection serves in a doe is all fuzzy at this point. I had one of those, it, I don't think it had any net effect on me, but I did because my legs were so tired at that point. But I enjoyed that dissent, uh, as I said, I had the bike for it, so it was a lot of fun and you know, it's always fun getting a little tiny bit of payback for the guys who were on the super lightweight setups on the way up.

Yeah. Yeah. So that Howard creek trail, it's called, is two, almost two and a half miles of single track. You're going to drop over a thousand feet. Um, it's, it's loose, it's exposed. Uh, and, and that's always where I said, you know, at some point during the ride, like you were saying, you're, you're having a great time and you're cursing usually us for sending you down that trail, like if you don't think that we're a little bit nuts at that point. Well, it's definitely a, um, a cool moment. And I think for a lot of people who are coming from that skinny tire background, it definitely pushes their comfort zone and pushes their technical ability. But everyone who gets down is so fired up that they were able to do it and they realized really what these drop bar bikes can do. Even with a set of 28 or 32 is, it's amazing what you can ride.

Yeah, and I think the thing is it's so different from every other part of that course that you've been on all day long to arrive there and have to really just wind your way through that single track. As you said, it's loose. It takes a lot of bike control. It's a lot of fun from my perspective, but I definitely saw that it challenged a lot of people and you know, a few people I saw at the very end they're getting out onto the road where like I'm just glad I got through that without injury or, or clipping out too much. But then as you, as you're probably about to say, you're sort of rewarded by this really fun ripping road descent.

Yeah. That's the descent of Rose Valley, which is sort of a staple climb out here. But we send our writers down it. So once you get off Howard, you get this a super smooth and flowing descent for 10 miles all the way back into Ohio. And uh, yeah, once you get to that point, you really know you've cracked it, you're going to make it, it's all good. Head Back Beers and talk.

Yeah. And I remember each year it's sort of linking up with maybe six or seven people in pace lining and cramping, cramping as I'm coming into town house, hoping that I could stay with the group because I don't want to be out there any longer. And I know the Taco guys are already cranking the Tacos.

Yeah. Well, and that's where guys who are riding the bigger tires or you know, every year there's a few guys and hardtail mountain bikes, which is great. We love it, bring them. But uh, that's where they suffer. Uh, you know, usually not a big enough gear and you're just turning a lot of tire to try and stick with some guys on some skinnier gear and dropbox. But again, it's all about finding not just the right bike, the event, the right bike for you. Where do you want to make your compromise and that that's all part of the fun.

Yeah. And it's in Ohio is a great community. I mean, it was a community I hadn't visited prior to racing at Graebel mob, so it was, it's awesome because you can go down there, you can make a weekend of it, you can bring your family this plenty of plenty to do and it's a community that can definitely use our support after the Thomas fires last year.

Yeah, no, no question, no question. The fires were crazy up here, but um, yeah, it is an amazing place to come hang out for the weekend and like you said, bring the family, make a weekend of it. Um, there's, there's plenty to do for, for everybody, but yeah, one thing we should definitely mention is that Howard creek trail, which we just briefly touched on, um, that's gone. That trail was wiped off the face of the mountain by the Howard, by the, uh, Thomas fire

really. So all the, all the, all the plants and vegetation burned off at that trail.

What happened, if you remember a lot of the real scary sections with little pucker factor. They had some wood retaining structures. Will the Thomas Fire burnt those structures away? And then we had heavy, heavy rain in January that just wiped the trail off the side of the mountain.

Gotcha. Because it was, it was absolutely on the side of a mountain and I could easily see like any erosion is going to just take the whole thing out.

Exactly. Exactly. So we've, we've hooked up with a guy here up in Ohio who is basically the Ohi trail whisper, this Guy Mike Gourley, he's a staple in the Ohi Ventura county cycling community and he just works tirelessly on these trails. And so a bunch of our sponsors, eastern Guru wa who stepped up along with Peloton to help foot the bill to repair that trail. So, so my Gourley is up there with a crew, literally recutting Howard trail, almost almost from scratch. So it should be an amazing shape by the time the race comes. But I'm just a huge thanks to the sponsors for stepping up to help, uh, you know, a pair of trail, not just for our event, but you know, it's one of those popular trails in that Ohi back country. So it's amazing that it'll be there, you know, be there in great shape for everybody.

Yeah, absolutely. That's hugely appreciated. I'm super curious to check that out. I know talking to a couple of local rippers they were saying that they love to come up there and downhill that on their bikes, which I can see.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The downhill is pretty fast and there's a that is officially neutral on the course, um, because really we're more of a ride than a race. It's not really about the race, it's about the ride. And there's of course, like any club ride, like anything, there's guys at the front that are racing, but really officially it's a ride. We don't give out prizes for first, second or third. Everything we get from these amazing sponsors goes into the raffle. So whether you finished first or dead last, you have the same chance of walking away with an eastern set of wheels and new Wahoo, gps, new pattern racer tires, some eastern components. Um, a bunch of good nutrition, some Schwag from salsa. Doesn't matter where you finish, you have an equal chance of winning.

Last year you guys did something interesting in the magazine and you built up that gravel mob bike from salsa and you alluded to that. You're going to do that again this year.

We're not doing that. That was sort of a, the ultimate build or at least what I think would be the ultimate build for the race. Like we said, there's the ultimate bill is different for everybody. So this year we're going to be giving away a salsa cycles warbird, but it's one of their stock builds. Okay. But still the way salsa puts that thing together, um, you, you can't go wrong. It's an amazing bike, not just for this ride, but for, for any ride, whether it's back country or like we talked about, you want to put on some skinny tires on it and write it on the road. It's more than capable of it.

Yeah. I thought that was an interesting project because it just illustrates a lot of what we've been talking about. How the right bike for gravel mob you had, you had a bunch of different constraints in there yet a bunch of climbing with 8,000 feet of climbing, but then you had this gnarly single track descent at the end. So putting together a package that would work across all those different types of terrain was a pretty big challenge.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and you look at the bottom of CSR, it's so steep. You really want to have that one to one gear ratio or maybe even a little more gear, but then you have a ripping fast spun out, descent down Roads Valley. So you've got to have a lot of gear range. Um, and like you said with Howard, do I want to run a 40 mil tire with some Nabi on it so I feel comfortable on Howard, but then I'm climbing with that up up. Um, you know, our first cleanup, sulfur mountain, which is a really fast climate. You can easily do on 28 millimeter road tires in the dirt, you know. So it's all about this tradeoff.

Yeah. I have to say, uh, I've, I've added one easier gear each time I've come to gravel mob and I don't think I'm quite there yet. I'm mashing up a up Caesar.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know the guys that are really racing the course. I mean some of those guys are hitting it on a 34 slash 28 or a 34 slash 32 less than a one to one. But then yeah, uh, myself included us that are a little farther back. We went that one to one gear ratio for sure.

We'll have to see. I'm thinking about making a couple of equipment changes before, before the event, so we'll see what I end up with this year.

Yeah, right on. Yeah, I know. Uh, I, I put 40 millimeter gravel king slicks on that salsa ultimate build. And I know a lot of people thought not slicks and file treads. A lot of people thought, oh, why didn't you go with the ski with a little more knob? But, you know, it was sort of my ultimate build. So maybe not ever been everybody's ultimate build, but I wanted, I wanted the file treads for the road stuff.

That's a. that's a good choice. I think we'll have to see. That's what I love about. I mean frankly I'm like I'm not the type of writer that makes a lot of switches for a specific. Even though I kinda think about it a lot, but as I said, I've got a couple of moves in my bike quiver that may be happening before gravel mob this year. So I'll make some choices. Maybe with the intention of changing things up a little bit.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that, like we talked about, that whole equipment equation is such a fun and engaging part of it, but I mean the other aspect to be of not just our event but, but all gravel racing is. I look at it as sort of like the ironman example where you get to race on the same course on the same day with world champions, with guys who wrote the Tour de France with some of the best athletes in the world and you're literally line up with them, which isn't going to happen anywhere else, you know, and it doesn't matter if you're trying to win, are you just wanting to be a participant? You all get to have that experience together. I mean last year at our race, but we had met over and came out. Got You said mountain bike world champion there. You know, we got neil surely lining up the guy who is, you know, 30 Kansas Champ, unbelievable writer. We've had dave brisky out there and to really get to line up with those guys in, you can try and stick with them, you know? Where else can you say, I'm going to try and stick with the tour Yellow Jersey on the at a big climb other than gravel racing, it just doesn't happen anywhere else.

Yeah, absolutely. One of my strengths and gravel racing is the neutral rollout. I don't tend to get dropped. Yeah, so I get to ride with all the guys at that point, which I think is fun. It's fun. Rolling out of 10, rolling out of Ohio together, down that bike path, and then kind of getting everybody's geared together for the first climb and and having the second start line if you will.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's really is so everyone can line up and start to get it because I don't know if you've ever done something like the Belgian waffle ride. Not all neutral starts are created equal. There are some full gas neutral starts out. There are neutral strategies are real neutral. Start with a regroup at the bottom of sulfur mountain and that's where the ride really gets going. Yeah.

Now I want to go back to one thing you touched on which was the distance of the ride at 58 miles because I do think personally that that's the sweet spot. It's the type of thing that it's. It's not insignificant. Certainly with the climbing, you feel like you'd put a big day together, but it's also not bone crushing

at all. Yeah. Yeah. I made the top guys are going under four hours, they're moving and then there's some people that are taking six or seven of course. But uh, yeah, it's, it's to really sort of reinforced the fact that we feel the community aspect is as important as the ride itself. And you know, everyone's got a story to tell whether you were first or last. So let's, let's hear your story and let's do it over or some, some great tacos from Turkey, a house in Topa, Topa. Brilliant. Does the beer. So it's a and we're all hanging out at the mob shop. It's um, it's the perfect environment to share those stories.

Yeah, it is. I think it's interesting as how the race promoters and course designers are exploring the different ends of the spectrum, whether it's shorter, punchier races that are really truly races and everybody's gone ballistic the whole time. Or the gravel mob distance, which I think is a, is the kind of perfect in between a distance where it's hard and long but not epic. And then you've got, you know, things like dk, 200 and the xl that are just exploring the full epic side of the spectrum.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. How far can you go. And, and we, I love that side of the sport as well. I've done grab a world's 150 mile course eight hour day. Um, we love that side of it too. Bwr what those guys do. They put on a great, a great event. But yeah, we like to hang out and have tacos and beer and not be completely smashed.

Yeah, no, I think I've come to the conclusion that there's room for all of them, you know, in the calendar and some you're only gonna do one, maybe 150 200 mile race a year and you'll focus on that. But you can, you can drop in a ton of these 60 mile in shorter races. Um, and have a blast doing them.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean that, that has been an amazing part of this gravel riding explosion, not just all the cool product and all the brands that are getting behind it, but the promoters and just, there's so many great events. Uh, you know, it's southern California here. We got Grapes of Wrath coming up October 26th I think, which is an amazing event. Sandbar. And is that the same emphasis, the rock cobbler out in, um, in Bakersfield, which is another amazing events in, I think it's in February. So there's just so many cool events that you as a writer, you really, you have your pick of just a really fun calendar.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think the toughest thing is an earthing information about all these great regional events and putting a plan together to go hit them.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I know, uh, my buddy at fast track, Dave lotteria comes out and does the gravel bob every year. But uh, at the end he ended the year. He always does this big facebook post with every single number that he has from the year. And as well as I know the grapple seen, there's still some numbers in there. I'm like, what event is that? And I have to look into it because there's so much out there.

Yeah, I mean it's clear the classics of the future or just get getting created right now, which is exciting to be part of the sport at this juncture.

Yeah, absolutely. I was thinking that this year at Belgian waffle ride, you know, the, the guys that um, that are going well there and trying to win that, that's going to be their biggest one of the season, you know, I think more people know who ted king is now for winning dirty Kanza. Then when he was racing the tour and racing the zero, I mean that's how far the sport's come. Yeah, I would definitely agree with that

bullet. Ben. I appreciate all the time. It's always great to talk gravel with someone who's been in it and, and making the scene happen. I appreciate you guys creating the event and I appreciate all the coverage and Peloton magazine.

Oh well, no problem. And thank you for letting us talk about our event. Just we throw it out there at Peloton gravel mob is going to be on November 17th this year and we want to put together, we've put together a code for your listeners, so if you listen to the gravel ride, go to bike, Raj searched, peloton gravel mob, put in gravel ride 10, and you get 10 percent off your entry for being a a gravel ride podcast listener.

That's awesome. Well, I appreciate that Ben, and we'll definitely try to get a truckload of people here from northern California to come down and hope hopefully listeners from around the country. We'll have time to make plans and as I said, Ohio is a great, great place to visit and an even better place to gravel ride.

Hello everyone, this week I want to welcome Ben Edwards from Peloton magazine to the podcast. Ben, thanks for joining us.

No problem. Thank you for having me and having a having to the Peloton gravel, Bob and Peloton magazine on the show.

Yeah. I'm excited to dig in with you. I always like to start by giving our listeners a little bit of understanding about your background as a cyclist, your current sort of gravel interests and because he worked for Peloton magazine. Love to hear a little bit about how you arrived at Peloton.

Yeah, sure. Well, I, I got into bike racing as a kid in high school. I played water polo and a kid showed up on pool deck with a road bike and he was wearing tights and we all kind of made fun of him, but in the back of my head I'm thinking that looks really cool and I want to do that. And my dad had a background as a cyclist, so once I told them I was interested then it was. It was full gas and I spent a lot of years racing is a junior track racing, a lot of team pursuit, a points race, stuff like that. And then really, um, after I was about 21 I realized I was not going to win the Tour de France. And so I, I went to school and I didn't touch the bike for almost 10 years. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, my wife, when I was 30, bought me a road bike. I took one look at it and I said, uh, oh, we're in trouble. I just, I felt that, uh, that passion just immediately explode. And uh, yeah, it was in the movie business. And so I started doing a lot of, um, lot of film work in the cycling industry. And I started a website called [inaudible] dot com where we did a lot of bike reviews. And, uh, and from there I met Brad Rowe, who is our publisher at Peloton magazine. I met Tim Shamburg, who's our creative director, and those guys were itching to do a different kind of cycling magazine and they invited me to come on board and, uh, enjoying the party and that was eight years ago, eight years ago when we founded Peloton magazine, along with Adam, rick and Robert Rex and, um, man's been 80. We're on working on her 80th issue now. It's just hard to believe because it still feels so fresh and fun. But yeah, eight years ago, working on her 80th issue now.

That's amazing. For those of you who haven't seen Peloton magazine, I definitely encourage you to go out and grab an issue really beautifully done. Every time I have an a, every time I receive an issue, I'm just inspired to ride. I think you guys do an amazing job of capturing the visual aspects of cycling and it just makes you want to kind of get suited up and go out the door.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Or um, you know, our goal with Peloton really was we didn't do a lot of focus groups. We didn't try and think what do people want to see, we just did what we wanted to see and luckily people agree with us, so we had a really fun ride for eight years and this will be our biggest year yet. Um, so, so nothing but, uh, on the web. It's looking really good.

That's awesome. And it seems to me that Peloton seized on the gravel cycling scene pretty early on and has really done a lot to kind of promote gravel within the pages in the magazine.

Yeah, I think that gets back to what I just mentioned, that when we just saw something we liked and we were interested in, we didn't worry if it was going to be a fit or if a drop bar magazine should be doing something in the dirt. We just thought it was cool and we just knew we were doing a lot of it on our own and we wanted to make it part of the magazine. I've always been at a mountain bike riding and mountain bike racing than a lot of that. And um, it was a great way to one, get dirt riding in Peloton magazine, which is really a drop bar, road magazine, and it was also, you know, I mean, I think it's everyone knows who rides gravel it, it's an incredible way to sort of reinvent writing territory. You may cite, you thought you knew well, you know, loops that were not possible on a road bike or not a lot of fun on a mountain bike because there was a bunch of road sections or is all just fire road are suddenly unlocked on a gravel bike. Eh, you know, in a way that's really inspiring. And, and I'm good, like I said, reinvents areas that people thought they knew. Well there's, there's new rides to be had.

Yeah. I think for me, as I've said many times on this podcast, it's really drawn me back into cycling. Just that idea that I can create these mixed terrain loops and travel all over marine county, avoid the cars and see the beautiful scenery. It's just, it gets me out riding, which is super exciting about the gravel scene.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and that's, that's a huge part of it is getting just out of traffic, you know, my wife, she asked me, are you going for a ride where you going? And if I say I'm writing gravel, she kind of breathes a sigh of relief and goes, have fun.

I never thought of that. But it's so true. I'm curious for your, from your perspective in the industry and as somebody who's been on the both the road and mountain side, what, what part of the sport, if, if you had to, if you had to say from the road side or the mountain side, do you think gravel is drawing more athletes from?

Well that's a great question. Um, I, I would say probably from the road side right now because, you know, a lot of the guys who were on mountain mountain is so segmented anyway, so segmented. Anyway, there's so many guys that are downhill and so many guys that are all mountain an enduro. And, and I do think a fair amount of the equity guys, the cross country guys have found gravel riding gravel racing. Um, but I just know so many friends that are just dedicated roadies that just their eyes have just been opened up by gravel riding and what's possible and they're so excited about the equipment and about trying to find the right gravel setup for them. Um, and it's a lot of things, you know, talking about tire pressure and tire size. You're riding that mountain. Bikers are familiar with that kind of conversation and for a lot of roadies it's very new and so it's really, um, it energizes them in a way that I don't think, um, they have been for awhile.

Yeah. I tend to agree with you. It's something I've been pondering for a little bit now because I do think that more roadies are discovering gravel then mountain bike guys, for all the reasons you just described and I think it's having an effect on the equipment in the space as well because I think a lot of the equipment manufacturers came from that road plus mindset versus a mountain bike mindset. And we're starting to see the influence with the bigger tire bikes like open and thesis and a bunch of other bikes out there that are really starting to look at it from more of a cross country mountain bike perspective and add the road elements on it rather than a road perspective and add the dirt elements on it.

Yeah, I think that's. I think that's very true. You sort of look at a gravel product right now and to me it always falls into two categories. It falls into sort of gravel survival, which when you look like sauces cycles, that's something like maybe a, a, a cutthroat, you know, it's a little more relaxed, tons of tire volume. It's also great adventure bike. And if you're going to try and knock out cancer and you know, you're going to be out there for a long time and just want to survive and be comfy. So perfect bike. And then there's sort of that gravel race side of things, you know. And that's um, that's like a salsa warbird, you know, something where you're gonna run a smaller tire as you can. You're really going to try and run light and you know, I want to be controversial, but some of the guys were put an arrow bars on these things now. So they're sort of. To me, there's two sides. There's gravel survival in gravel race and those products are starting to differentiate.

Yeah. I buy that. United had mentioned before on the pod that I originally got interested in gravel from the bike packing side of things and I was seeing. I was just interested in following races, like the tour divide and not that I had done much of that myself, but I started to look at those bikes in the types of adventures that they were designed for and as someone who probably aligns himself more as a mountain biker than a roadie. There was a, there was an instant appeal to me. Um, and so you see the bikes, like what salsa was doing with the drop bars that were, could have a lot of carrying capacity and they were built for the, for the tour divide. And then you started seeing the other side of the spectrum where it was just sort of these road plus bikes that may be, could get out to a 38 tire Max. Um, so I liked those two categories as you define it. And clearly there's no right or wrong answer. I think it's an interesting discussion to continue to have with lots of people because as my listeners are trying to figure out what bikes are they going to buy to get into the sport, these are the types of things I think you have to grapple with. It's sort of like, are you just going to kind of get off the beaten path from time to time or is it going to be primarily dirt?

Yeah, yeah, no doubt. I think, um, you're talking about those bikes where you can get up to a 38, right? That's, you can write that on the club ride with us at 28 mil tires. Put the 38th on it and you got a great bike for gravel worlds or, or the Peloton gravel mob. But you might want something a little different if you're looking at crusher or you're looking at at a dirty Kanza. But that's again, I think one of the things that energizes people is it's really tough to say what's the right bike for a specific course because you're sort of always making a compromise somewhere. You're compromising on the fast section. If you go with bigger tires and you're more laid back, you're compromising on the more technical sections if you're trying to run a real fast, narrow tire setup. So that's the equation that everyone gets to wrestle with when they are signing up for these events and trying to, you know, trying to build their right bike.

That's a great segue because I want to talk about the gravel mob event that is coming up. Sure. It's actually one of my favorite events. As I mentioned to you before. I think I'll be on my third edition this year when I come down and on it to me captures all the elements of a great gravel ride. It's got great adventure. It brought me way off the beaten path that never written any of that terrain. And the first time I had been down there, and Ohi I hated my bike at one point and I love to add another point. I wait all day long for that ripping single track at the end. I'm going to tell you that right now because I'm the guy who rides the fat tires and I'm dragging up hill, but when I get there, boy, Oh boy, I am cruising down there and finding the guys who elected to be on 28 suffering through that tiny last section of the course.

Yup, Yup. Yeah, absolutely. That, that is a, our Howard creek descent off the ridge line. It's definitely something that the, uh, the event has become known for.

So tell us how the event started. I know you're linked up with a great shop down there and Ohi and a lot of great sponsors. I just love to hear about how it all got started.

Yeah. Well, so it's our fifth year doing this when we did it with a mob shop in Ohio, uh, one of the owners of the mob shop, Tim Rowen is my co race director. So we pretty much, you know, um, it's, it's pretty equal load there in terms of the, the entire creation of the race, um, and, and running it itself. So we, uh, went six years ago, we had a Peloton cross, we were doing a cross race out at Lake Casitas here in Ohio and we decided the next year, hey, on Sunday after the cross race, let's do a gravel ride and let's go ahead and kind of create this course that we think shows off the best of, of gravel riding in Ohi and sort of Ventura county. And we realized pretty quickly that, uh, it was a lot more fun too in that gravel race. Then I'm at the crossroads and we love cross, but hearts were gravel, gravel is where our heart is.

So we transitioned into just making the Palatine graebel mob, um, our focus and definitely have not regretted that. And we've had some amazing sponsors come on to support the event and just support gravel writing in general. Pattern racer has been a sponsor since year one. And then make the gravel cane, which is just, they have a bunch of great options for the ride and the gravel cane, whether you're ride in the SK or one of the file treads is perfect. Easton came on last year and Craig Ritchie, who runs their marketing program, he was in the lead group all day. I'm that guy is crazy fit. He'll be back racing again. A goo comes out, good nutrition, you rehearse while day. Kansas Champ. He comes out and he leads a ride the day before and then he crushes it on the course again. And Salsa cycles coming back for that second year. Those guys have been amazing support. And uh, we're giving away a warbird again this year in our December issue. If people saw that ultimate bike build we did last year, that was all salsa. All Easton. I'm pattern racer. And then we're really super excited because Wa who's coming on board this year as our official gps sponsor. So, uh, if you know our, our raffle at the end, which is about as important as the race itself for us a while it will be a part of that as well.

That's awesome. I'm looking forward to it. I, I've been lucky two years in a row. I've walked away with something awesome. So I'm stoked for that. So I know you said you wanted, you guys wanted to kind of just create a course that took a good hard look at all the disciplines within gravel and providing a sort of an option of pushing your limits regardless of what your strengths are. So if we chop up the course, I know we've got a couple of climbs in there, a couple of good descents. Can you talk a little bit more specifically about the course and what people should expect?

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean overall the course is 58 miles. So when people think about a gravel riding, oh, that's short. And it is, it is short for a short program, programmable ride and part of that's very intentional. We want people to enjoy the party after and hang out for a long time, you know, we got tacos and beer and like I said, the greater the raffle after. So that's as important as the race to us is that community feeling after an in sharing those stories from the course. But uh, we started out, the first big, big obstacle is called Sulfur Mountain. It's a monster monster climb that is in the neighborhood of eight miles, but it's really like super highway dirt fire road. And so that's where the first group group goes away, is right on there. Um, after that, the next big climb is called CSR and a CIS. Our road is a beast. It's really steep through a creek bed at the beginning. But again, fire road, couple of water crossings, it looks like there'll be a little wet this year and that's another super, super long long climb because overall there's 8,000 feet of climbing on the course.

Yeah, that's. This is our climate is definitely. I think it's part obviously that it's in the latter half of the race and you've already climbed sulfur mountain, but there's something about it that I think, well, for me it was just very taxing. I think it's this super steep pitches and a couple of years I've been down there, it's been super hot. Uh, so people were just melting away on that climb.

Yeah. Did you get one of the popsicles?

I just have a night. I was just going to mention that. I mean towards the, towards the aid station, at the top of the climb, this, this young volunteers running down with shaking something in his hands and he asked do you want a popsicle? And I honestly like didn't know if my brain was working correctly, if I'm truly answering the right question. Absolutely. I want to

popsicle. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And there'll be popsicles, oncourse again, don't worry. Yeah. So that climb, it's eight miles long and it's over 3000 feet of climbing. So it's, it's a big ask, although this year, and we can talk about this a little more when we get to Howard trail. So there's some big updates there. We had the Thomas fire come through in December, which really scorched all of Ohio and you're going to get a front row seat to seeing what happened with the Thomas fire in the back country of Ohio on this ride. But because of that, the bottom of Sister Canyon road, which used to be the most technical section of the course is beautiful smooth dirt. So I did a facebook post earlier this week. Um, if Neil Shirley's Koom is to fall, it's going to be this year because the bottom of the course is so fast right now

that that could have a huge impact. I mean, I, that's, that part of that climb sticks in my memory every year as something that sort of piece pick male your way through. And a lot of people were getting off and walking. So I, I think, uh, our friend Neil may have some challenges in that. Keeping that KLM.

Yeah, the time is not so fast, but if it's going to be done it'll be, it'll be this year. But then after you get to the top of sis are you get to what I think is the signature moment of the race itself, which is the North Ridge road. It's just this beautiful eight mile long, gorgeous gravel road across the spine of the Topa Topa mountains. And you're at over 4,000 feet. You have unbelievable, unbelievable views out to the Pacific Ocean. You're looking into the CSP wilderness left to your right. We think it's the best gravel road in America. And uh, and to me it's a signature part of the ride itself, getting getting our field up there and enjoy. And that is incredible.

Yeah, no, there's definitely spectacular views. I spent a little bit more time last year up there than I had planned as my good good riding buddy. Todd got a flat and we had a hell of a time getting his tire unseated off the rim and changing out. So we were probably sitting around for 10, 10 minutes looking at that view as we were begging for extra tire leavers from riders that came by and eventually got it, got it corrected. And the good thing about where we were located was a few miles further down the trail. We came to the next aid station where I got the second surprising offer of the day.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So yeah. Are Our final aid station of the day is right at the entrance to that single track descent you referenced earlier. Uh, Howard Howard creek trail. And um, this event is kind of run like a family event. So a lot of the people up there are my brother, my sister in law. My kid probably ran down to give you the popsicle. And so what my, my brother and sister in law, I do at that third aid station. It's not officially sanctioned by the event, but rumor has it if you need it to kill a shot before you dropped down Howard, you can have a tequila shot before you dropped down. Howard?

Yes. Ed recollection serves in a doe is all fuzzy at this point. I had one of those, it, I don't think it had any net effect on me, but I did because my legs were so tired at that point. But I enjoyed that dissent, uh, as I said, I had the bike for it, so it was a lot of fun and you know, it's always fun getting a little tiny bit of payback for the guys who were on the super lightweight setups on the way up.

Yeah. Yeah. So that Howard creek trail, it's called, is two, almost two and a half miles of single track. You're going to drop over a thousand feet. Um, it's, it's loose, it's exposed. Uh, and, and that's always where I said, you know, at some point during the ride, like you were saying, you're, you're having a great time and you're cursing usually us for sending you down that trail, like if you don't think that we're a little bit nuts at that point. Well, it's definitely a, um, a cool moment. And I think for a lot of people who are coming from that skinny tire background, it definitely pushes their comfort zone and pushes their technical ability. But everyone who gets down is so fired up that they were able to do it and they realized really what these drop bar bikes can do. Even with a set of 28 or 32 is, it's amazing what you can ride.

Yeah, and I think the thing is it's so different from every other part of that course that you've been on all day long to arrive there and have to really just wind your way through that single track. As you said, it's loose. It takes a lot of bike control. It's a lot of fun from my perspective, but I definitely saw that it challenged a lot of people and you know, a few people I saw at the very end they're getting out onto the road where like I'm just glad I got through that without injury or, or clipping out too much. But then as you, as you're probably about to say, you're sort of rewarded by this really fun ripping road descent.

Yeah. That's the descent of Rose Valley, which is sort of a staple climb out here. But we send our writers down it. So once you get off Howard, you get this a super smooth and flowing descent for 10 miles all the way back into Ohio. And uh, yeah, once you get to that point, you really know you've cracked it, you're going to make it, it's all good. Head Back Beers and talk.

Yeah. And I remember each year it's sort of linking up with maybe six or seven people in pace lining and cramping, cramping as I'm coming into town house, hoping that I could stay with the group because I don't want to be out there any longer. And I know the Taco guys are already cranking the Tacos.

Yeah. Well, and that's where guys who are riding the bigger tires or you know, every year there's a few guys and hardtail mountain bikes, which is great. We love it, bring them. But uh, that's where they suffer. Uh, you know, usually not a big enough gear and you're just turning a lot of tire to try and stick with some guys on some skinnier gear and dropbox. But again, it's all about finding not just the right bike, the event, the right bike for you. Where do you want to make your compromise and that that's all part of the fun.

Yeah. And it's in Ohio is a great community. I mean, it was a community I hadn't visited prior to racing at Graebel mob, so it was, it's awesome because you can go down there, you can make a weekend of it, you can bring your family this plenty of plenty to do and it's a community that can definitely use our support after the Thomas fires last year.

Yeah, no, no question, no question. The fires were crazy up here, but um, yeah, it is an amazing place to come hang out for the weekend and like you said, bring the family, make a weekend of it. Um, there's, there's plenty to do for, for everybody, but yeah, one thing we should definitely mention is that Howard creek trail, which we just briefly touched on, um, that's gone. That trail was wiped off the face of the mountain by the Howard, by the, uh, Thomas fire

really. So all the, all the, all the plants and vegetation burned off at that trail.

What happened, if you remember a lot of the real scary sections with little pucker factor. They had some wood retaining structures. Will the Thomas Fire burnt those structures away? And then we had heavy, heavy rain in January that just wiped the trail off the side of the mountain.

Gotcha. Because it was, it was absolutely on the side of a mountain and I could easily see like any erosion is going to just take the whole thing out.

Exactly. Exactly. So we've, we've hooked up with a guy here up in Ohio who is basically the Ohi trail whisper, this Guy Mike Gourley, he's a staple in the Ohi Ventura county cycling community and he just works tirelessly on these trails. And so a bunch of our sponsors, eastern Guru wa who stepped up along with Peloton to help foot the bill to repair that trail. So, so my Gourley is up there with a crew, literally recutting Howard trail, almost almost from scratch. So it should be an amazing shape by the time the race comes. But I'm just a huge thanks to the sponsors for stepping up to help, uh, you know, a pair of trail, not just for our event, but you know, it's one of those popular trails in that Ohi back country. So it's amazing that it'll be there, you know, be there in great shape for everybody.

Yeah, absolutely. That's hugely appreciated. I'm super curious to check that out. I know talking to a couple of local rippers they were saying that they love to come up there and downhill that on their bikes, which I can see.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The downhill is pretty fast and there's a that is officially neutral on the course, um, because really we're more of a ride than a race. It's not really about the race, it's about the ride. And there's of course, like any club ride, like anything, there's guys at the front that are racing, but really officially it's a ride. We don't give out prizes for first, second or third. Everything we get from these amazing sponsors goes into the raffle. So whether you finished first or dead last, you have the same chance of walking away with an eastern set of wheels and new Wahoo, gps, new pattern racer tires, some eastern components. Um, a bunch of good nutrition, some Schwag from salsa. Doesn't matter where you finish, you have an equal chance of winning.

Last year you guys did something interesting in the magazine and you built up that gravel mob bike from salsa and you alluded to that. You're going to do that again this year.

We're not doing that. That was sort of a, the ultimate build or at least what I think would be the ultimate build for the race. Like we said, there's the ultimate bill is different for everybody. So this year we're going to be giving away a salsa cycles warbird, but it's one of their stock builds. Okay. But still the way salsa puts that thing together, um, you, you can't go wrong. It's an amazing bike, not just for this ride, but for, for any ride, whether it's back country or like we talked about, you want to put on some skinny tires on it and write it on the road. It's more than capable of it.

Yeah. I thought that was an interesting project because it just illustrates a lot of what we've been talking about. How the right bike for gravel mob you had, you had a bunch of different constraints in there yet a bunch of climbing with 8,000 feet of climbing, but then you had this gnarly single track descent at the end. So putting together a package that would work across all those different types of terrain was a pretty big challenge.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and you look at the bottom of CSR, it's so steep. You really want to have that one to one gear ratio or maybe even a little more gear, but then you have a ripping fast spun out, descent down Roads Valley. So you've got to have a lot of gear range. Um, and like you said with Howard, do I want to run a 40 mil tire with some Nabi on it so I feel comfortable on Howard, but then I'm climbing with that up up. Um, you know, our first cleanup, sulfur mountain, which is a really fast climate. You can easily do on 28 millimeter road tires in the dirt, you know. So it's all about this tradeoff.

Yeah. I have to say, uh, I've, I've added one easier gear each time I've come to gravel mob and I don't think I'm quite there yet. I'm mashing up a up Caesar.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know the guys that are really racing the course. I mean some of those guys are hitting it on a 34 slash 28 or a 34 slash 32 less than a one to one. But then yeah, uh, myself included us that are a little farther back. We went that one to one gear ratio for sure.

We'll have to see. I'm thinking about making a couple of equipment changes before, before the event, so we'll see what I end up with this year.

Yeah, right on. Yeah, I know. Uh, I, I put 40 millimeter gravel king slicks on that salsa ultimate build. And I know a lot of people thought not slicks and file treads. A lot of people thought, oh, why didn't you go with the ski with a little more knob? But, you know, it was sort of my ultimate build. So maybe not ever been everybody's ultimate build, but I wanted, I wanted the file treads for the road stuff.

That's a. that's a good choice. I think we'll have to see. That's what I love about. I mean frankly I'm like I'm not the type of writer that makes a lot of switches for a specific. Even though I kinda think about it a lot, but as I said, I've got a couple of moves in my bike quiver that may be happening before gravel mob this year. So I'll make some choices. Maybe with the intention of changing things up a little bit.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that, like we talked about, that whole equipment equation is such a fun and engaging part of it, but I mean the other aspect to be of not just our event but, but all gravel racing is. I look at it as sort of like the ironman example where you get to race on the same course on the same day with world champions, with guys who wrote the Tour de France with some of the best athletes in the world and you're literally line up with them, which isn't going to happen anywhere else, you know, and it doesn't matter if you're trying to win, are you just wanting to be a participant? You all get to have that experience together. I mean last year at our race, but we had met over and came out. Got You said mountain bike world champion there. You know, we got neil surely lining up the guy who is, you know, 30 Kansas Champ, unbelievable writer. We've had dave brisky out there and to really get to line up with those guys in, you can try and stick with them, you know? Where else can you say, I'm going to try and stick with the tour Yellow Jersey on the at a big climb other than gravel racing, it just doesn't happen anywhere else.

Yeah, absolutely. One of my strengths and gravel racing is the neutral rollout. I don't tend to get dropped. Yeah, so I get to ride with all the guys at that point, which I think is fun. It's fun. Rolling out of 10, rolling out of Ohio together, down that bike path, and then kind of getting everybody's geared together for the first climb and and having the second start line if you will.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's really is so everyone can line up and start to get it because I don't know if you've ever done something like the Belgian waffle ride. Not all neutral starts are created equal. There are some full gas neutral starts out. There are neutral strategies are real neutral. Start with a regroup at the bottom of sulfur mountain and that's where the ride really gets going. Yeah.

Now I want to go back to one thing you touched on which was the distance of the ride at 58 miles because I do think personally that that's the sweet spot. It's the type of thing that it's. It's not insignificant. Certainly with the climbing, you feel like you'd put a big day together, but it's also not bone crushing

at all. Yeah. Yeah. I made the top guys are going under four hours, they're moving and then there's some people that are taking six or seven of course. But uh, yeah, it's, it's to really sort of reinforced the fact that we feel the community aspect is as important as the ride itself. And you know, everyone's got a story to tell whether you were first or last. So let's, let's hear your story and let's do it over or some, some great tacos from Turkey, a house in Topa, Topa. Brilliant. Does the beer. So it's a and we're all hanging out at the mob shop. It's um, it's the perfect environment to share those stories.

Yeah, it is. I think it's interesting as how the race promoters and course designers are exploring the different ends of the spectrum, whether it's shorter, punchier races that are really truly races and everybody's gone ballistic the whole time. Or the gravel mob distance, which I think is a, is the kind of perfect in between a distance where it's hard and long but not epic. And then you've got, you know, things like dk, 200 and the xl that are just exploring the full epic side of the spectrum.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. How far can you go. And, and we, I love that side of the sport as well. I've done grab a world's 150 mile course eight hour day. Um, we love that side of it too. Bwr what those guys do. They put on a great, a great event. But yeah, we like to hang out and have tacos and beer and not be completely smashed.

Yeah, no, I think I've come to the conclusion that there's room for all of them, you know, in the calendar and some you're only gonna do one, maybe 150 200 mile race a year and you'll focus on that. But you can, you can drop in a ton of these 60 mile in shorter races. Um, and have a blast doing them.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean that, that has been an amazing part of this gravel riding explosion, not just all the cool product and all the brands that are getting behind it, but the promoters and just, there's so many great events. Uh, you know, it's southern California here. We got Grapes of Wrath coming up October 26th I think, which is an amazing event. Sandbar. And is that the same emphasis, the rock cobbler out in, um, in Bakersfield, which is another amazing events in, I think it's in February. So there's just so many cool events that you as a writer, you really, you have your pick of just a really fun calendar.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think the toughest thing is an earthing information about all these great regional events and putting a plan together to go hit them.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I know, uh, my buddy at fast track, Dave lotteria comes out and does the gravel bob every year. But uh, at the end he ended the year. He always does this big facebook post with every single number that he has from the year. And as well as I know the grapple seen, there's still some numbers in there. I'm like, what event is that? And I have to look into it because there's so much out there.

Yeah, I mean it's clear the classics of the future or just get getting created right now, which is exciting to be part of the sport at this juncture.

Yeah, absolutely. I was thinking that this year at Belgian waffle ride, you know, the, the guys that um, that are going well there and trying to win that, that's going to be their biggest one of the season, you know, I think more people know who ted king is now for winning dirty Kanza. Then when he was racing the tour and racing the zero, I mean that's how far the sport's come. Yeah, I would definitely agree with that

bullet. Ben. I appreciate all the time. It's always great to talk gravel with someone who's been in it and, and making the scene happen. I appreciate you guys creating the event and I appreciate all the coverage and Peloton magazine.

Oh well, no problem. And thank you for letting us talk about our event. Just we throw it out there at Peloton gravel mob is going to be on November 17th this year and we want to put together, we've put together a code for your listeners, so if you listen to the gravel ride, go to bike, Raj searched, peloton gravel mob, put in gravel ride 10, and you get 10 percent off your entry for being a a gravel ride podcast listener.

That's awesome. Well, I appreciate that Ben, and we'll definitely try to get a truckload of people here from northern California to come down and hope hopefully listeners from around the country. We'll have time to make plans and as I said, Ohio is a great, great place to visit and an even better place to gravel ride.

Absolutely. I always like to start off by finding out a little bit about how you discovered gravel, where you're coming more from the mountain or road side.

Well, I guess like going way, way back, you know, my, my background is I'm a pro mountain biker for three years before transitioning over to the road, but it was, I'd say honestly like my past and gravel came from, came from the skinny tires and it was just being out of my training rides like I grew up in San Louis Obispo where there's just some really killer dirt road to ride gravel roads, you know, in the midst of a road ride. And so I'd hit some of those than I lived in San Diego and you know, same, same idea again, you just like stuff like va Haas grade and Boulder Creek road. Some of those, you know, travel sections that did just complete a really cool road ride. So I'd say that was like the first kind of my entry into it, but then, you know, when I quit racing professionally is when I got head over heels into gravel.

And when was that?

So my last pro race was US Pro road race 2010 in September. So then I'm kind of hung it up, wasn't sure how much I was really going to ride a bike anymore and took a job as the editor of road bike action magazine. Um, and then it was literally like within a year that kind of did like the first Belgian waffle ride. And that really was like, whoa. That was, that would, I would say that was probably my path into grab walks. That would be the first event that I actually ran different equipment on a road bike than I normally would have to ride. And Yeah. And then it was like, it was all about gravel after that.

What kind of equipment changes could you make at that point? Back in 2010 if you can remember?

Yeah. So, you know, forget what bike I rode in for the first few are. So, so the first Bwr I guess would have been 20, 2012 maybe. And that was a, just go in with a road bike and putting, putting essentially just 20 ac tires on it. I'm lowering the pressure a little bit. Um, but even, even then you were only. No, you didn't even have a wide selection of really good tubeless tire, so you know, it was running like a Grand Prix, you know, continental Grand Prix, 3004 seasons. So just a really tough all around tire. Um, so yeah, it was really just is really just wider tires was about it. Um, and then my first real entry into, you know, what we'd really categorize gravel as now would have been crushed the [inaudible] I'm out in Utah and it's my good friend, teammate on the road, Birch swindlehurst put on that event and you know, it really worked out that, you know, while I was working I was at road bike action.

We wanted to do a project like, and there are some small, you know, independent builders that were just getting into gravel. I mean you couldn't go out and buy a gravel bike for mania that big brands like term didn't even really exist yet. So I went to Kathy and had them build a custom dragon fly road frame with um, what, what we call a just like adventure geometry. And that allowed me to run up to a 35 tire and disc brakes. And so I was like my first true gravel bike and it was seeing was pretty amazing when you think about it, like going back to 2012.

Yeah, that's, that's pretty amazing. You often hear a lot of people from the road side of the sport reference crusher and Natasha and Bwr and I think part of it, his crusher with Brent. It's brand right? Who organizes it?

A Burke Burke,

sorry. With Burke's road background. I think he naturally drew in a lot of his friends who were looking for an adventure. And that adventure then started to become known to other riders and athletes who were like, hell yeah, I want to give that a try.

Yeah, I'd say that's a good way to phrase it. Say both, like Bwr in crusher really pushed kind of that race and maybe crusher doesn't do it as much now, but early on it was. It was really about the race and it was one of the only gravel events that actually has a price person. They still do. And you know, the winter both male and female and get a thousand dollars for the win and, and Bwr very much same way even though there isn't a, you know, a cash purse. I'm Michael Marks, you know, the event founder like he, he really comes from that road scene and it's that kind of that so cal race mentality and that's, you know, that's really, I think what's built up the hype around event was kind of the roadside and coming in and pushing the limits of what you can do on a road bike.

Yeah. And I've heard Michael defend very aggressively against it being called the gravel grinder or gravel race. You really wanted to have, you know, that road orientation, like a Belgian classic, which I think is interesting because as we noted it's, it is exciting and the amount of dirt in that particular races small enough that in a roadies are coming out and riding it hard and just taken their lumps in the dirt and discovering that the dirt part was actually quite fun.

Yeah. No. And it's true. And I mean the first year of that event and the first couple of years like you just didn't, you know, there, there's still the range now, like if you went to the Bwr this year, like the range of equipment is, is mindblowing out there. You have someone you know from a road bike with 25 see tires all the way to the guy with, you know, a gravel bike, six wheels and two point one and mountain bike tires. But early on like those, those extra, you know, the extreme of the six slash 50 b and then all the gravel options and tire sizes, all that. Stuff like that really didn't exist. Then. Like that's really just been within the last handful of years that we have so much equipment available to us.

Yeah, it's true. I imagine, and I've heard others refer to this back in the early days of crusher that you'd see all kinds of bikes show up there from mountain bikes to modified cross bikes to straight up road bikes with the fattest tires they can handle on it.

Yeah, I mean I think, you know, my setup the first year I did it in 2012 on that calfee, like I, I went, I essentially had no budget because I could call up these companies and tell them what I was doing and this would be a big feature in the magazine. So getting the equipment was, was easy and so I had the best stuff I could, I could pick, but I was still very much limited. Like I ran, I envy the cross Pepsi Mountain bike wheels in tubular because clinchers at that time were, the wheels were support so heavy and the tire options were so limited as well. I mean you only had only had cyclocross tires and with the UCI limit of cyclocross tire being 33 cm in width, there just weren't high volume tires available. Um, so I was out there tubulars, now I look back and it's like kind of comedy, you know, because we have such a myriad of, of tire ranges, every brand basically in tubeless option or tubeless ready options. So you know, it's a good. Anyone getting into the segment of the sport now is like, you know, good for you because you have so much equipment available at prices that are, that are pretty economic now.

Yeah. The the riders who started out early on, we were more a controlled by constraints in the industry, so we were just picking things that were incrementally bigger or better than where we were able to ride previously and now to your point, there's just been an explosion and the gravel bike, it's such a broad definition and I think manufacturers are approaching it from so many different perspectives. You definitely see on the more road side manufacturers just allowing for larger tires to give a little bit more freedom and potentially make them accessible for light gravel use and then on the opposite end of the spectrum, you've got companies that are coming from more of a bike packing perspective that are building these burly monster cross off road machines with drop bars that are totally different ends of the spectrum and it's really fascinating. I think for a lot of my listeners who are just getting into the sport, try to figure out where in that spectrum does it make sense to place their ownership?

Yeah, I think that that's true. And it, you know, to your point, it's great that all these options exist, but also for the consumer, the person just getting into the scene, they know it can be a little bit overwhelming because there is such a range in bikes. All kind of categorized is gravel or adventure bikes. And so like if you're coming in and you know like where, what side you air on like extreme or kind of the, you know, the road bike with just a little more clearance that can take us 33 c or something like that. So, you know, I think with those options it's like consumer education is a big part of it. So podcasts like this are just a great, a great tool for people getting into it.

Yeah, I agree that it's, it's totally confusing for consumers getting in once they really peel the onion around gravel and try to grab a bunch of resources to try to figure out what does this brand manufacturer, what's the approach, what will this bike enable me to do is a ton of thought that goes into it. I know that was my personal journey. I ended up getting a commuter bike that was enabled me to have dyspraxia and you know, it's fairly wide, 700 see tires and the moment I started riding off road in Marine County I just started to think that fatter would be better and ultimately ended up with something that could take 6:50, b one nine tires and I pretty much ride big fat tires all the time at this point.

Yeah, I'm kind kinda right there with. I used to early on like I'd go out to Rebecca is private Idaho or something on the run, you know like the 33 see specialized trigger because I thought it would be so much faster than a 35 or something. And now, you know, as I've, as I've written more groundwater than more events, I've seen like some of the test data coming out from some of these companies, it's like air pressure's going down, tire volume is going up, rim volume is going up, all these things improve the rhymes so much. So now I'm like, I don't really have a reason to go smaller than like a 40 c with a 700 seat. We'll, um, unless I was doing like maybe grab a world and I was really looking for the most efficient setup possible. I could go narrower because I mean those, those roads, like I grabbed the world which is in Lincoln, Nebraska, they're there gravel. But it's such a hard pack. The link, you know, like the tire lane, um, might as well be pavement.

I know you've worked a lot with envy over your career and you mentioned that you see a trend for rims going lighter. Can you get into that a little bit more for us?

Yeah. So I, you know, there's, there's a number of, you know, head was one of the first ones really that got into the wide rim trend with some of their, um, road wheels and then envy has been right there with them kind of pushing that. And this year envy came out with their g 23, there are specific gravel we'll um, which as a 23 millimeter internal and it's easy to get caught up on just thinking like, okay, wider, wider is better. But, so the, like the [inaudible] three is, is kind of designed after the m five, two five, which is the cross country mountain bike rim, but the [inaudible] three is two millimeters narrower. And so that's really just to go with a 35 to 40, 40 to see tire, kind of that range that they're running. So it's not always just about wider is better at it, you know, how it works. And with the tire size,

what is the benefit of that width to the rider?

Um, it has, it has multiple benefits. One is just, again, overall overall volume is you're opening up. If you're increasing the volume, um, you know, you have more pinch flat protection, um, you can decrease the pressure, um, you know, without, if you decrease the pressure to have a nice ride on a narrower rim, the opportunity, it's easier to get a pinch flats. Um, so yeah, I would say that that's the biggest one of the biggest improvements.

And does that end up translating into something different with the tires you're running when you're running a little bit less pressure and you kind of get maybe a flatter footprint. Is it changing the way tire manufacturers are looking at what they're producing

and tire manufacturers are definitely looking at it, but I'd say more so on, on the road side. So you see some of these, um, with like say the new cannondale aerobic stitches came out, it comes with a 25 c tire, which you would think, you know, maybe it's not that wide, but you look at the rim that it's on. All of the sudden, like he measured, it's probably like a 28 or 29 millimeter wide tire on the super wider rims that are coming stock on the bike so that all that all comes into the play and that, um, it all counts as overall overall air volume. You have to factor in the rim and the tire it. I'm kind of an interesting thing that envy did on their website is they put together a tire tire pressure chart and it factors in right away rim width. So it's not just and be specific, you can figure out, you know, what your, your inner rim width is on brand x. we'll you can go in and look at, see what they suggest, like whoa. A highlight, high range and low range for tire pressure. It's a pretty handy guy. Um, that I think will surprise people on kind of how low they recommend on, on some of the setups.

Yeah. I think that's common with a lot of people I talked to you is that they've found that they've just gotten lower and lower on the pressure because they're not getting any negative consequences to that. I've been learning a little bit more about what you were talking about around tire width relative to rim width and how you know the measurement of the tires are. We can't just do chronically think of these millimeters anymore because with a wider rim it's going to fat now to a little bit and it's gonna feel like a bigger tire then maybe you think you've specked on your bike.

Yeah, exactly. You really have to kind of look at it as it as a system, right? Rather than just the individual than just a rim or the tire. It's like both combined because that's. That's what you're writing, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

In the right direction, that's for sure.

Yeah. Yeah, and it overwhelmingly seems like to a degree fatter and wider or better. Obviously we'll find the outer bound of that statement, but I always encourage everybody is listening to go to go fatter than they think they should go initially because I rarely hear of anybody complaining about that choice.

Yeah, for sure. And the the, you know, the only thing you have to keep in mind is as that air volume increases, you need to. You need to decrease the pressure. That's kind of the, you know, the fine point in at all. If you, if you're running a 35 see tire on on a rim and you put a 40 on the same rim and you run it at the same pressure, it's going to feel like the pressure is increased. So bring, bring that pressure down as you go bigger and you'll be very happy.

Right. Well, it's been interesting talking about the evolution of the equipment and with you. I know coming from a mountain bike background, you're maybe more open to a lot of the trends and innovations that have come into the gravel market. I'm particularly curious to talk to you about the dao fork as we've had benedict on the show. If you episodes ago, and it was really fascinating conversation, so I'd love to get your take on writing that Lao fork on your bike and what you see the advantages are and if you think more and more people are going to start going down that route.

Yeah. The amount of, uh, questions I get about that fork are, it's incredible. So three years ago at dirty Kanza, I used one of the, one of the Lao grit forks, I put it on an open and didn't really get to ride it much before the race, but then just absolutely loved it in the race itself. Um, and then I had an opportunity this year to ride the truth, the true grit, so the frame and fork that they build, um, and couldn't be happier. It's a to 30 millimeter, you know, amount of travel using just the carbon leaf springs and you know, it. I first went in and thinking like, okay, this is really going to just kill it on the washboard chatter stuff. And it does. If it improves that for sure. But where I was really surprised was when I'm getting into a little more extreme terrain and like big rain roads going sideways and you're hitting those things. Then normally with a rigid fork you kind of hit, you know, hit that, hit a ring, right, going sideways and your wheel front wheel wants to deflect and go sideways. But with that fork it's just enough to keep your front end pointed the right direction. And I feel that it actually gives me not only night ride a little bit faster, but I have more control. So I'll take, I'll take better control. Went on some sketchy, sketchy gravel road descent.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, did you find that over the longer events that you were less fatigued using the fork?

Yeah, I, I, I would have to say so it's like all those, you know, the, the micro vibration that we deal with over the course of, even if it's, you know, a 100 mile ride, but especially as you start stretching out when you're on the bike all day long, like just reducing that in your shoulders, your neck. Um, all of that. It really, you know, I think in an event like dirty Kanza, you don't really find out your weak links until you're in something like that. It just really stretches you and this year at decay like I, you know, I should do upper body workouts and stuff like that, but I don't. I'm lazy and you know, it, it's pretty amazing. Like how well my upper body held up and I really do attribute it a lot too just to that front end.

Right now you and I were both down in big bear at the spandex stampede event, which had a decent amount of climbing for the mileage. Yeah. How do you feel about the fork when climbing, obviously it adds about a pound of weight to the bike. Do you feel like the advantages overall kind of outweigh that weight?

Yeah, I think so. Especially especially on gravel. I'm just, you know, the advantages I just was talking about, I mean my bike is still only like 17 and a half or 18 pounds and so that, that seems plenty of light to me. Um, and for, you know, I do most of my climbing, seated, climbing so I have no idea that that work is even, they're going up hill, you know, you're not getting any bobbing out of it if, you know, if you stand up a lot and maybe you don't have like really good form and you're kind of bouncing on the friend, like I could see that bothering you a little bit, but I think you've kind of work on your, if you felt that you kind of work on your form and you actually improve your climbing form, just by realizing if you're bouncing, you know, if you're bouncing around and wasting energy.

Yeah, that makes sense. What about for our listener who rides a little bit more on the road in their gravel bike journeys? How, how does the fork feel on the road and you know, is it, is it really for someone who is writing mostly off road?

I would say like if you're, if you're predominantly on the road, you know, there's just the benefits of it obviously diminish. Um, but you know, I raised it Belgian waffle ride this year and is a first time I'd ever actually written a bike other than a traditional road bike. And I on it, I really thought like I would give up, I'd really be given stuff up on some of the climbing, some of the rope climbing parts in the group and I was astonished. It was a great setup. I ran 30 see tires on it and the bike was so capable, like anytime we hit the dirt it was just like, I felt like I was at such an advantage.

That's really interesting. That's really good feedback. I think. I'm glad to hear that. I do think, and I've mentioned this before on the podcast that to a degree gravel sort of aligns itself with road biking than mountain biking. And as such we've got this sort of preconceived notion as to what the bike should look like and how we should dress, et cetera. And I think the leading edge companies are trying to blow that away and really make people think about, well, how does the bike perform? Let's forget about the heritage of maybe why this sector of the sport started to evolve and I think the law fork is a prime example of that, that it probably is faster and a lot of respects for a lot of the terrain that people are riding and definitely racing on, but there's a little bit of resistance to people grabbing hold of it and putting on their bikes.

Yeah, I agree. I mean the road, the road side, you know, traditional bunch for sure. Um, you know, you look at how long it's taken, you know, just for disc brake acceptance, um, that's kind of a shame because guess what, so many people can benefit greatly from disc brakes even if those people aren't. The pros like that shouldn't matter. Um, so yeah, I would say, you know, mountain bikers and even track athletes like triathletes or read their apt to try anything that they think is going to improve performance. Like they'll, they'll give anything a go. So it is cool to see like the gravel niche and like people not afraid to just, you know, try new things and even just like the spandex event like you were talking about in big bear, like I saw a number of labs out there and I, I think that there's going to be more and more, you know, they're gonna keep selling those bikes just as the word gets out. What, what an advantage it is.

Yeah, definitely. And I mean obviously we've seen a couple of other fork manufacturers dip their toe in the water and I think life is going to lead the way, but others will follow.

Yeah. Now, uh, now they just need a good proper post with suspension. It will be sad.

I was just going to move onto dropper posts because it's been something that's come up a few times on the podcast and I, I'm, I'm curious about it for sure. You're definitely gonna see one on my bike in the coming months as I test it out and try to understand its affects more.

Yeah. I have yet to use the dropper posts on and gravel bike. And, and to be honest, I probably only use the dropper post on a mountain bike a couple of times, so it's kind of new. It's new territory for me, but I, you know what, like I'm totally open for, for running one because I liked, I liked to do like some true mountain biking, all my gravel bike. I think it's, it's really fun. And you know, a dropper posts would be an advantage in situations. Like I tell people like I can get a rush, I can get an adrenaline rush, all my gravel bike in dirt going 15 miles an hour, 20 miles an hour. And if I wash out in a wreck, you know, doing something technical, I'm probably not going to get hurt to get an adrenaline rush on the road bike. I have to be going really fast when things go wrong. Like it really hurts if I can, if I can push the limits on the gravel bike, like that's, that's totally fine. I'm probably going to walk away if things go wrong.

Yeah, exactly. I keep keep messaging the guys over at thesis spike who are specking a bike with a dropper post or at least as an option and I'm always saying like, oh, I just wrote this really steep terrain on my bike and I could definitely use the dropper post and Randall, the designer over there. I will always come back to me saying, yeah, you'd love it there, but trust me, it wouldn't just be there. It'll be when you're descending on the road when you're doing lots of things that you wouldn't think of. When you finally have one on your bike. You'll discover that your speed and safety can both go up and it's. I'm really curious to test that hypothesis.

Yeah, that's. That's a good idea. Someone it afford dirty cans and kind of. When we already knew that the aero bars, we're going to be a big deal this year at some of these events and someone was trying to figure out how they could make a dropper post where there was just maybe a centimeter of difference so that when they're in the aero bars and up on the nose of the saddle, they could use the post to go off a centimeter and then when they're out of the, out of the aero bars and you know, just on the hoods are the top how they could use the dropper to go down to the centimeter. So I think we're gonna see there's gonna be a lot more kind of going on in this world, you know, tech advantages, some for just having fun like a dropper post. And then like still race geeks that are like looking to get every, you know, be able to get a little bit faster. It's, it's fun because, you know, it's like mountain biking in the early nineties, you know, we're just, everyone's just throwing stuff out there and we'll see what sticks.

Yeah. Yeah. It's great. And I want to transition a little bit away from equipment and just talk about racing and the community and the events. And that's a great segue because I think both you and I share this vision of gravel as it is now as being similar mountain biking back then where, you know, you still saw people camping before the race. It was always a festival atmosphere. So talk a little bit about that and maybe some of the events that you've done and how community is playing a role in, in gravel and how you're enjoying it personally.

Yeah. So I mean honestly it, it takes me back to when I first got into mountain biking when I was 14 and you know, I'd go to the races with my dad and we got an rv just to go to the races and camp out because all of our friends did that too. So we'd be at Keysville classic, you know, the night before the race at the bonfire and all the vehicles circled around. Same with camping out there for a week. And then, you know, when I transitioned into the road and did the pro racing thing, like there was, there was none of that like you had no, there just wasn't. There just wasn't really a community. You went out and you did your job, you know, that was great who hopefully you have a good race if not you move onto the next one. But with gravel now it really takes me back to when I first fell in love with bikes and you know, that was that community part of it and being out there and you make a full weekend out of it, then you're just hanging out with people like that's such a huge draw of it.

And I think that's something, you know, as mountain biking has declined and you know, people got into road racing. That's really been a, a big, you know, kind of big missing piece or cycling. Um, now we, now we have it again and there's so many. There's like events like grinder or where it isn't just a one day ride, it's a full weekend event and Grapes of Wrath which is put on by the guys that put on a rock cobbler. Again, a full weekend event where is not just encouraged, you know, for you to be there the whole weekend. It's kind of mandatory is what is what it's all about. So I, you know, I hope that there's more and more events like that and you know, Rebecca's prime died but which is coming up, you know, Labor Day weekend. That's, that's a perfect example again of being out there and Rebecca has created just like this community of people to go experience her favorite writing and guess what, it's turned out that like people want that because these events that have just been nothing but growth.

Yeah. I think today's gravel athletes are looking for new terrain. They're looking for all the community and you know, post race barbecues and camping that you're describing. And to me it is like my experience with mountain biking as well. I remember signing up for mountain bike events primarily because I knew someone had taken the time to create a course in a different part of the country that I could get to and I'd get to go experience some new terrain without overthinking the navigation piece of it.

Yeah, no, it's true. And I think even better with what's fun with gravel and you know, I hope we don't start seeing like a lot like mountain biking where you do like four laps or something like that. I, I see gravel is like this exploration and this adventure, so going out and doing one big ass flap, whether it's 80 miles or 200 miles, whatever it is, 50 miles, as long as you're seeing something really cool and you're getting to experience whatever this area is and what's special and unique to the area. I'm, that's, that's really, those are the events that really intrigued me and it turns out like you can be in Nebraska or Kansas or bakersfield and on the dirt bike there is so much cool stuff to see out there. Like on the road road, the road surface, you can ride through some great areas, but road surface never changes and I think with gravel, the gravel events, you know, one of the, one of the key things is that you really never know what you're getting in each area with the type of terrain you're gonna get. And that's just a whole different. Just a whole different element that makes you have to stay really checked in and engaged with what you're doing and very much in the moment.

Yeah, totally agree. And for the middle of the pack guys such as myself, just finding those different areas to ride in and the unique adventure of being all over the map. Like I was down at the old growth classic this weekend down by Santa Cruz and I hiked on some of that terrain and written some of the legal stuff, but I'd never kind of created this massive loop. So there was times I had no idea where I was, but it just kept plugging away and enjoy the fact that I was just discovering this terrain in a different way and give big props to that course designer because you just created a hard loop that, that tested the equipment across the board, depending on which end of the spectrum you are on. If you had the big fat tires or narrow tires, there are parts of the course that we're going to suit either or. But no one left that course thinking I had the right equipment for every single pedal stroke, which I think is the hallmark of great gravel course design.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's, it's, it's pretty fun to like be underbite not all the time but like be in situations where you're like, ah yeah, I, you know, yeah, a mountain bike would be good here. But as a whole, looking at it as the entire course as a whole course, like you know, often the gravel bike is, is the ideal setup and that, you know, the old growth classic like Dallas, like that looks like a special event that they put together and that area has like, you know, you have the grasshopper adventure series up there and like they're. So there's so many great, like Kinda grassroots style events to choose from.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm stoked to see how it's grown all over the country really. I keep hearing about new events thinking, oh I want to go down and do that. And I was stoked that I would just happen stance took me down to southern California and as able to do that big bear event because previously the only other one I'd done was gravel mob, which I totally love.

Yeah. Yeah. Gravel. Mom's a great one in. Oh, hi there. And unfortunately like all of that, all those mountains burned, you know, this past this past year. So hopefully they, hopefully they're still able to put on the event, you know, and it, it won't be maybe quite as beautiful, but that just, that whole area is, is really spectacular up above Ohio.

Yeah. I just actually got an email alert from the guys at Peloton magazine and it's definitely on.

Oh good. Then yeah, that's, that's great to hear. They do a good job with it. I've done it a couple times and it's so hard day in the saddle, that's for sure.

Yeah, it's another fun one. Soup to nuts I think.

Yeah. Yeah. And then like, you know, as, as you're talking about you finish up, give high fives, grab a beer, grab Tacos, everyone's hanging out for hours afterward, Sharon stories and no one is eager to get out of there. Um, so pretty special vibe.

Absolutely. So I'm curious as someone who's raced a lot of these events, at least kind of on the west coast, the events are going a couple of different directions. You Got Short, fast, punchy events and then you've got other events exploring kind of the ultra distance side of the sport. Like with the Dk xl this year, what's your reaction to, to what's going on in terms of the length of course race, the race is, etc.

I, I really liked that. There's so many optIons now. The basically, you know, lIke dirty kanza scares the crap out of me and so that makes me want to train and be able to like be as prepared as possible just to get through it, but I don't want, I don't want that feeling more than once or twice a year. So then to have opportunities for something like spandex stampede where it's 40 to 45 miles and you can be done in two and a half, three hours and then just kind of hanging out. I Think those are like, that's kind of how I like to do it. Like mixing stuff like spandex, um, rock cobbler. I think it's really cool that all of the sudden we have opportunity to kind of pick and choose. Whereas five years ago it was like, whoa, what do you know? There's a gravel event in California.

Cool, let's go do it. Now we have, you know, probably 20 good choices, you know, over the course of the summer. Um, so they, they all kind of, they all speak to me in different ways and you know, I probably am not going to be signing up for dk xl anytime soon. I think, you know, I've told jim come into the promoter like 200 and you know, the course is actually 207 miles for the, for the normal dk. That's more than enough for me. So I think I kind of tapped out at that 200 mile distance personally.

Yeah. I don't blame you at all. I think 200 is a monster effort, one of which full disclosure, I've never done an in any circumstances you're adding 200 miles. So anybody who crosses that finish line I think is amazing. I do think on the xcel side is going to be interesting because the quote unquote racers that you hear about it, it's a different type of character that's going to want to do those, that type of mileage. I mean you're kind of getting into tour divide territory more than kind of one day bike race territory.

Yeah, it's really interesting. And just to see like who is successful out there? Like Rebecca Rush, you know, she, I think ended up for overall out of men and women and you know, just dominated the women's field. Whereas she was up against a couple women that maybe in the 200 mile distance at this point could have eat rebecca. So it's just as, as you stretch the mile out, almost double the amount of miles, like the different types of athletes emerge that, you Know, seems crazy to say 200 miles is too short for them. But it's kinda kinda how it is.

Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean it goes back to my original arrival in gravel. I credit more towards the notion of bike packing, then gravel itself. I just sort of became fascinated in those overnight and multi day and month long races that people were doing and started following them and looking at the equipment. And that got me thinking just a lot more about adventure in my writing and something that was sorely needed in my life as a cyclist at that moment in time. And I kind of got drawn in and I'd never done any of those bike packing races. But that's what got my toe in the water and started becoming so passionate about gravel riding in general.

Yeah, that's, that's cool. So interestingly enough, I, like I would say I started on the other side of the spectrum. My, it was the racing side that brought me into it and you know, I wanted to go, I want to do, you know, when belgian waffle ride and, and when crusher and the tuscher and I wanted to win dirty kanza and it took me, took me a few years to, you know, of course I would still love to go when dirty kanza that's just not reality now. But I would say early on it was, that was kind of my main. That was my biggest goal and my first dirty kanza ever. I went into it and I was so incredibly fit. Just basically did pro mile leading up to it and really wanted to win it and had my rear derailleur break off 25 miles in. and it was like at that moment I was like, okay, well I'm not racing races over how can I finish?

And I was on the side of the road for an hour, rigging up a single speed and did the next 175 miles on a single speed and was able to finish. And the real kind of eyeopening experience was riding with the people I was around, which were mid to back of the pack typewriters. Um, because I was really limited on how fast I could go because of my, my gear ratio and the people out there were like. So I went into it thinking, okay, I just want to dominate. I want to win this thing. And these other people, it was such, such a different task for them. They were, they were literally just trying to survive to get through it. And really from then on really changed my thinking and going, you know, going to these events and look at the bigger picture. and it's not just about racing and trying to go fast, it's, it's such a marginal part of the day. And so I always try and remind myself and I, you know, I, I can't win many races anymore, but still like that, that's an experience that like just really remains with me and I'm really fortunate. I feel fortunate for having that happened to me because it, it really just opened my eyes to everything around me.

Yeah. I imagine it really shaped your professional perspective in working with brands at this point that just to have that visceral understanding of like, hey, these guys, they don't really care if someone passes them. They don't really care if they pass anybody else. They're just really. they're out there for the adventure. And the adventure includes everything between the start line and the finish line.

Yep. And, and they're the real, like they're the ones that need to be celebrated at 1:00 AM, you know, a dirty cans or any event like that. That's kind of, you know, the mid back, the people, they're working way harder. They have such such a harder day than the people that are finishing in the top three, top 10. They are what they go through out there just to will themselves to the finish of some of these big long events. It's really inspiring.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. totally agree wIth you and I think those sentiments are really wide. There's such a huge opportunity for the industry with the sport of gravel because we can really. the event organizers continue to create the community atmosphere and the great adventure courses. I think people come in and will continue to come into the sport and discover that it is really this gem that is right there at their fingertips and right outside a lot of people's doors are these back roads and dirt roads that can show them parts of their community that they never even imagined before.

Yeah. It's just. It's just fun. Like for me, It's brought to open the door. Even though I've lived in the same area for eight years. when I go out on the gravel bike, it's like I have all new rides available to me and I don't want to get like negative and talk about cars and drivers, but when I'm, when I'm on a dirt road or a trail somewhere, I don't have to worry about anything going on around me. I can just focus on my ride and enjoying and kind of let my, you know, a little bit of peace of mind and you know, if I'm going out in the middle of the day for a lunch ride, that kinda decompressor it's great. Just going in and hitting dirk. I don't have anything else to think about.

Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of peace to be had out there on the gravel trails. So neil, this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate all the time and your perspective on the sport and your continued commitment to growing it.

Yeah, it's, as I told you before, I, I can talk about driving all day, so it's really fun. It's, you know, the scene is brought me, kind of renewed, my passion for writing, so it's great to be on the podcast. Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome. ThankS for coming in. All right man. That was great. I think we've got some good material.

Good deal. Yeah. Well thanks again for thinking of me. I'm stoked to, uh, to be a part of this.

Absolutely. I always like to start off by finding out a little bit about how you discovered gravel, where you're coming more from the mountain or road side.

Well, I guess like going way, way back, you know, my, my background is I'm a pro mountain biker for three years before transitioning over to the road, but it was, I'd say honestly like my past and gravel came from, came from the skinny tires and it was just being out of my training rides like I grew up in San Louis Obispo where there's just some really killer dirt road to ride gravel roads, you know, in the midst of a road ride. And so I'd hit some of those than I lived in San Diego and you know, same, same idea again, you just like stuff like va Haas grade and Boulder Creek road. Some of those, you know, travel sections that did just complete a really cool road ride. So I'd say that was like the first kind of my entry into it, but then, you know, when I quit racing professionally is when I got head over heels into gravel.

And when was that?

So my last pro race was US Pro road race 2010 in September. So then I'm kind of hung it up, wasn't sure how much I was really going to ride a bike anymore and took a job as the editor of road bike action magazine. Um, and then it was literally like within a year that kind of did like the first Belgian waffle ride. And that really was like, whoa. That was, that would, I would say that was probably my path into grab walks. That would be the first event that I actually ran different equipment on a road bike than I normally would have to ride. And Yeah. And then it was like, it was all about gravel after that.

What kind of equipment changes could you make at that point? Back in 2010 if you can remember?

Yeah. So, you know, forget what bike I rode in for the first few are. So, so the first Bwr I guess would have been 20, 2012 maybe. And that was a, just go in with a road bike and putting, putting essentially just 20 ac tires on it. I'm lowering the pressure a little bit. Um, but even, even then you were only. No, you didn't even have a wide selection of really good tubeless tire, so you know, it was running like a Grand Prix, you know, continental Grand Prix, 3004 seasons. So just a really tough all around tire. Um, so yeah, it was really just is really just wider tires was about it. Um, and then my first real entry into, you know, what we'd really categorize gravel as now would have been crushed the [inaudible] I'm out in Utah and it's my good friend, teammate on the road, Birch swindlehurst put on that event and you know, it really worked out that, you know, while I was working I was at road bike action.

We wanted to do a project like, and there are some small, you know, independent builders that were just getting into gravel. I mean you couldn't go out and buy a gravel bike for mania that big brands like term didn't even really exist yet. So I went to Kathy and had them build a custom dragon fly road frame with um, what, what we call a just like adventure geometry. And that allowed me to run up to a 35 tire and disc brakes. And so I was like my first true gravel bike and it was seeing was pretty amazing when you think about it, like going back to 2012.

Yeah, that's, that's pretty amazing. You often hear a lot of people from the road side of the sport reference crusher and Natasha and Bwr and I think part of it, his crusher with Brent. It's brand right? Who organizes it?

A Burke Burke,

sorry. With Burke's road background. I think he naturally drew in a lot of his friends who were looking for an adventure. And that adventure then started to become known to other riders and athletes who were like, hell yeah, I want to give that a try.

Yeah, I'd say that's a good way to phrase it. Say both, like Bwr in crusher really pushed kind of that race and maybe crusher doesn't do it as much now, but early on it was. It was really about the race and it was one of the only gravel events that actually has a price person. They still do. And you know, the winter both male and female and get a thousand dollars for the win and, and Bwr very much same way even though there isn't a, you know, a cash purse. I'm Michael Marks, you know, the event founder like he, he really comes from that road scene and it's that kind of that so cal race mentality and that's, you know, that's really, I think what's built up the hype around event was kind of the roadside and coming in and pushing the limits of what you can do on a road bike.

Yeah. And I've heard Michael defend very aggressively against it being called the gravel grinder or gravel race. You really wanted to have, you know, that road orientation, like a Belgian classic, which I think is interesting because as we noted it's, it is exciting and the amount of dirt in that particular races small enough that in a roadies are coming out and riding it hard and just taken their lumps in the dirt and discovering that the dirt part was actually quite fun.

Yeah. No. And it's true. And I mean the first year of that event and the first couple of years like you just didn't, you know, there, there's still the range now, like if you went to the Bwr this year, like the range of equipment is, is mindblowing out there. You have someone you know from a road bike with 25 see tires all the way to the guy with, you know, a gravel bike, six wheels and two point one and mountain bike tires. But early on like those, those extra, you know, the extreme of the six slash 50 b and then all the gravel options and tire sizes, all that. Stuff like that really didn't exist. Then. Like that's really just been within the last handful of years that we have so much equipment available to us.

Yeah, it's true. I imagine, and I've heard others refer to this back in the early days of crusher that you'd see all kinds of bikes show up there from mountain bikes to modified cross bikes to straight up road bikes with the fattest tires they can handle on it.

Yeah, I mean I think, you know, my setup the first year I did it in 2012 on that calfee, like I, I went, I essentially had no budget because I could call up these companies and tell them what I was doing and this would be a big feature in the magazine. So getting the equipment was, was easy and so I had the best stuff I could, I could pick, but I was still very much limited. Like I ran, I envy the cross Pepsi Mountain bike wheels in tubular because clinchers at that time were, the wheels were support so heavy and the tire options were so limited as well. I mean you only had only had cyclocross tires and with the UCI limit of cyclocross tire being 33 cm in width, there just weren't high volume tires available. Um, so I was out there tubulars, now I look back and it's like kind of comedy, you know, because we have such a myriad of, of tire ranges, every brand basically in tubeless option or tubeless ready options. So you know, it's a good. Anyone getting into the segment of the sport now is like, you know, good for you because you have so much equipment available at prices that are, that are pretty economic now.

Yeah. The the riders who started out early on, we were more a controlled by constraints in the industry, so we were just picking things that were incrementally bigger or better than where we were able to ride previously and now to your point, there's just been an explosion and the gravel bike, it's such a broad definition and I think manufacturers are approaching it from so many different perspectives. You definitely see on the more road side manufacturers just allowing for larger tires to give a little bit more freedom and potentially make them accessible for light gravel use and then on the opposite end of the spectrum, you've got companies that are coming from more of a bike packing perspective that are building these burly monster cross off road machines with drop bars that are totally different ends of the spectrum and it's really fascinating. I think for a lot of my listeners who are just getting into the sport, try to figure out where in that spectrum does it make sense to place their ownership?

Yeah, I think that that's true. And it, you know, to your point, it's great that all these options exist, but also for the consumer, the person just getting into the scene, they know it can be a little bit overwhelming because there is such a range in bikes. All kind of categorized is gravel or adventure bikes. And so like if you're coming in and you know like where, what side you air on like extreme or kind of the, you know, the road bike with just a little more clearance that can take us 33 c or something like that. So, you know, I think with those options it's like consumer education is a big part of it. So podcasts like this are just a great, a great tool for people getting into it.

Yeah, I agree that it's, it's totally confusing for consumers getting in once they really peel the onion around gravel and try to grab a bunch of resources to try to figure out what does this brand manufacturer, what's the approach, what will this bike enable me to do is a ton of thought that goes into it. I know that was my personal journey. I ended up getting a commuter bike that was enabled me to have dyspraxia and you know, it's fairly wide, 700 see tires and the moment I started riding off road in Marine County I just started to think that fatter would be better and ultimately ended up with something that could take 6:50, b one nine tires and I pretty much ride big fat tires all the time at this point.

Yeah, I'm kind kinda right there with. I used to early on like I'd go out to Rebecca is private Idaho or something on the run, you know like the 33 see specialized trigger because I thought it would be so much faster than a 35 or something. And now, you know, as I've, as I've written more groundwater than more events, I've seen like some of the test data coming out from some of these companies, it's like air pressure's going down, tire volume is going up, rim volume is going up, all these things improve the rhymes so much. So now I'm like, I don't really have a reason to go smaller than like a 40 c with a 700 seat. We'll, um, unless I was doing like maybe grab a world and I was really looking for the most efficient setup possible. I could go narrower because I mean those, those roads, like I grabbed the world which is in Lincoln, Nebraska, they're there gravel. But it's such a hard pack. The link, you know, like the tire lane, um, might as well be pavement.

I know you've worked a lot with envy over your career and you mentioned that you see a trend for rims going lighter. Can you get into that a little bit more for us?

Yeah. So I, you know, there's, there's a number of, you know, head was one of the first ones really that got into the wide rim trend with some of their, um, road wheels and then envy has been right there with them kind of pushing that. And this year envy came out with their g 23, there are specific gravel we'll um, which as a 23 millimeter internal and it's easy to get caught up on just thinking like, okay, wider, wider is better. But, so the, like the [inaudible] three is, is kind of designed after the m five, two five, which is the cross country mountain bike rim, but the [inaudible] three is two millimeters narrower. And so that's really just to go with a 35 to 40, 40 to see tire, kind of that range that they're running. So it's not always just about wider is better at it, you know, how it works. And with the tire size,

what is the benefit of that width to the rider?

Um, it has, it has multiple benefits. One is just, again, overall overall volume is you're opening up. If you're increasing the volume, um, you know, you have more pinch flat protection, um, you can decrease the pressure, um, you know, without, if you decrease the pressure to have a nice ride on a narrower rim, the opportunity, it's easier to get a pinch flats. Um, so yeah, I would say that that's the biggest one of the biggest improvements.

And does that end up translating into something different with the tires you're running when you're running a little bit less pressure and you kind of get maybe a flatter footprint. Is it changing the way tire manufacturers are looking at what they're producing

and tire manufacturers are definitely looking at it, but I'd say more so on, on the road side. So you see some of these, um, with like say the new cannondale aerobic stitches came out, it comes with a 25 c tire, which you would think, you know, maybe it's not that wide, but you look at the rim that it's on. All of the sudden, like he measured, it's probably like a 28 or 29 millimeter wide tire on the super wider rims that are coming stock on the bike so that all that all comes into the play and that, um, it all counts as overall overall air volume. You have to factor in the rim and the tire it. I'm kind of an interesting thing that envy did on their website is they put together a tire tire pressure chart and it factors in right away rim width. So it's not just and be specific, you can figure out, you know, what your, your inner rim width is on brand x. we'll you can go in and look at, see what they suggest, like whoa. A highlight, high range and low range for tire pressure. It's a pretty handy guy. Um, that I think will surprise people on kind of how low they recommend on, on some of the setups.

Yeah. I think that's common with a lot of people I talked to you is that they've found that they've just gotten lower and lower on the pressure because they're not getting any negative consequences to that. I've been learning a little bit more about what you were talking about around tire width relative to rim width and how you know the measurement of the tires are. We can't just do chronically think of these millimeters anymore because with a wider rim it's going to fat now to a little bit and it's gonna feel like a bigger tire then maybe you think you've specked on your bike.

Yeah, exactly. You really have to kind of look at it as it as a system, right? Rather than just the individual than just a rim or the tire. It's like both combined because that's. That's what you're writing, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

In the right direction, that's for sure.

Yeah. Yeah, and it overwhelmingly seems like to a degree fatter and wider or better. Obviously we'll find the outer bound of that statement, but I always encourage everybody is listening to go to go fatter than they think they should go initially because I rarely hear of anybody complaining about that choice.

Yeah, for sure. And the the, you know, the only thing you have to keep in mind is as that air volume increases, you need to. You need to decrease the pressure. That's kind of the, you know, the fine point in at all. If you, if you're running a 35 see tire on on a rim and you put a 40 on the same rim and you run it at the same pressure, it's going to feel like the pressure is increased. So bring, bring that pressure down as you go bigger and you'll be very happy.

Right. Well, it's been interesting talking about the evolution of the equipment and with you. I know coming from a mountain bike background, you're maybe more open to a lot of the trends and innovations that have come into the gravel market. I'm particularly curious to talk to you about the dao fork as we've had benedict on the show. If you episodes ago, and it was really fascinating conversation, so I'd love to get your take on writing that Lao fork on your bike and what you see the advantages are and if you think more and more people are going to start going down that route.

Yeah. The amount of, uh, questions I get about that fork are, it's incredible. So three years ago at dirty Kanza, I used one of the, one of the Lao grit forks, I put it on an open and didn't really get to ride it much before the race, but then just absolutely loved it in the race itself. Um, and then I had an opportunity this year to ride the truth, the true grit, so the frame and fork that they build, um, and couldn't be happier. It's a to 30 millimeter, you know, amount of travel using just the carbon leaf springs and you know, it. I first went in and thinking like, okay, this is really going to just kill it on the washboard chatter stuff. And it does. If it improves that for sure. But where I was really surprised was when I'm getting into a little more extreme terrain and like big rain roads going sideways and you're hitting those things. Then normally with a rigid fork you kind of hit, you know, hit that, hit a ring, right, going sideways and your wheel front wheel wants to deflect and go sideways. But with that fork it's just enough to keep your front end pointed the right direction. And I feel that it actually gives me not only night ride a little bit faster, but I have more control. So I'll take, I'll take better control. Went on some sketchy, sketchy gravel road descent.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, did you find that over the longer events that you were less fatigued using the fork?

Yeah, I, I, I would have to say so it's like all those, you know, the, the micro vibration that we deal with over the course of, even if it's, you know, a 100 mile ride, but especially as you start stretching out when you're on the bike all day long, like just reducing that in your shoulders, your neck. Um, all of that. It really, you know, I think in an event like dirty Kanza, you don't really find out your weak links until you're in something like that. It just really stretches you and this year at decay like I, you know, I should do upper body workouts and stuff like that, but I don't. I'm lazy and you know, it, it's pretty amazing. Like how well my upper body held up and I really do attribute it a lot too just to that front end.

Right now you and I were both down in big bear at the spandex stampede event, which had a decent amount of climbing for the mileage. Yeah. How do you feel about the fork when climbing, obviously it adds about a pound of weight to the bike. Do you feel like the advantages overall kind of outweigh that weight?

Yeah, I think so. Especially especially on gravel. I'm just, you know, the advantages I just was talking about, I mean my bike is still only like 17 and a half or 18 pounds and so that, that seems plenty of light to me. Um, and for, you know, I do most of my climbing, seated, climbing so I have no idea that that work is even, they're going up hill, you know, you're not getting any bobbing out of it if, you know, if you stand up a lot and maybe you don't have like really good form and you're kind of bouncing on the friend, like I could see that bothering you a little bit, but I think you've kind of work on your, if you felt that you kind of work on your form and you actually improve your climbing form, just by realizing if you're bouncing, you know, if you're bouncing around and wasting energy.

Yeah, that makes sense. What about for our listener who rides a little bit more on the road in their gravel bike journeys? How, how does the fork feel on the road and you know, is it, is it really for someone who is writing mostly off road?

I would say like if you're, if you're predominantly on the road, you know, there's just the benefits of it obviously diminish. Um, but you know, I raised it Belgian waffle ride this year and is a first time I'd ever actually written a bike other than a traditional road bike. And I on it, I really thought like I would give up, I'd really be given stuff up on some of the climbing, some of the rope climbing parts in the group and I was astonished. It was a great setup. I ran 30 see tires on it and the bike was so capable, like anytime we hit the dirt it was just like, I felt like I was at such an advantage.

That's really interesting. That's really good feedback. I think. I'm glad to hear that. I do think, and I've mentioned this before on the podcast that to a degree gravel sort of aligns itself with road biking than mountain biking. And as such we've got this sort of preconceived notion as to what the bike should look like and how we should dress, et cetera. And I think the leading edge companies are trying to blow that away and really make people think about, well, how does the bike perform? Let's forget about the heritage of maybe why this sector of the sport started to evolve and I think the law fork is a prime example of that, that it probably is faster and a lot of respects for a lot of the terrain that people are riding and definitely racing on, but there's a little bit of resistance to people grabbing hold of it and putting on their bikes.

Yeah, I agree. I mean the road, the road side, you know, traditional bunch for sure. Um, you know, you look at how long it's taken, you know, just for disc brake acceptance, um, that's kind of a shame because guess what, so many people can benefit greatly from disc brakes even if those people aren't. The pros like that shouldn't matter. Um, so yeah, I would say, you know, mountain bikers and even track athletes like triathletes or read their apt to try anything that they think is going to improve performance. Like they'll, they'll give anything a go. So it is cool to see like the gravel niche and like people not afraid to just, you know, try new things and even just like the spandex event like you were talking about in big bear, like I saw a number of labs out there and I, I think that there's going to be more and more, you know, they're gonna keep selling those bikes just as the word gets out. What, what an advantage it is.

Yeah, definitely. And I mean obviously we've seen a couple of other fork manufacturers dip their toe in the water and I think life is going to lead the way, but others will follow.

Yeah. Now, uh, now they just need a good proper post with suspension. It will be sad.

I was just going to move onto dropper posts because it's been something that's come up a few times on the podcast and I, I'm, I'm curious about it for sure. You're definitely gonna see one on my bike in the coming months as I test it out and try to understand its affects more.

Yeah. I have yet to use the dropper posts on and gravel bike. And, and to be honest, I probably only use the dropper post on a mountain bike a couple of times, so it's kind of new. It's new territory for me, but I, you know what, like I'm totally open for, for running one because I liked, I liked to do like some true mountain biking, all my gravel bike. I think it's, it's really fun. And you know, a dropper posts would be an advantage in situations. Like I tell people like I can get a rush, I can get an adrenaline rush, all my gravel bike in dirt going 15 miles an hour, 20 miles an hour. And if I wash out in a wreck, you know, doing something technical, I'm probably not going to get hurt to get an adrenaline rush on the road bike. I have to be going really fast when things go wrong. Like it really hurts if I can, if I can push the limits on the gravel bike, like that's, that's totally fine. I'm probably going to walk away if things go wrong.

Yeah, exactly. I keep keep messaging the guys over at thesis spike who are specking a bike with a dropper post or at least as an option and I'm always saying like, oh, I just wrote this really steep terrain on my bike and I could definitely use the dropper post and Randall, the designer over there. I will always come back to me saying, yeah, you'd love it there, but trust me, it wouldn't just be there. It'll be when you're descending on the road when you're doing lots of things that you wouldn't think of. When you finally have one on your bike. You'll discover that your speed and safety can both go up and it's. I'm really curious to test that hypothesis.

Yeah, that's. That's a good idea. Someone it afford dirty cans and kind of. When we already knew that the aero bars, we're going to be a big deal this year at some of these events and someone was trying to figure out how they could make a dropper post where there was just maybe a centimeter of difference so that when they're in the aero bars and up on the nose of the saddle, they could use the post to go off a centimeter and then when they're out of the, out of the aero bars and you know, just on the hoods are the top how they could use the dropper to go down to the centimeter. So I think we're gonna see there's gonna be a lot more kind of going on in this world, you know, tech advantages, some for just having fun like a dropper post. And then like still race geeks that are like looking to get every, you know, be able to get a little bit faster. It's, it's fun because, you know, it's like mountain biking in the early nineties, you know, we're just, everyone's just throwing stuff out there and we'll see what sticks.

Yeah. Yeah. It's great. And I want to transition a little bit away from equipment and just talk about racing and the community and the events. And that's a great segue because I think both you and I share this vision of gravel as it is now as being similar mountain biking back then where, you know, you still saw people camping before the race. It was always a festival atmosphere. So talk a little bit about that and maybe some of the events that you've done and how community is playing a role in, in gravel and how you're enjoying it personally.

Yeah. So I mean honestly it, it takes me back to when I first got into mountain biking when I was 14 and you know, I'd go to the races with my dad and we got an rv just to go to the races and camp out because all of our friends did that too. So we'd be at Keysville classic, you know, the night before the race at the bonfire and all the vehicles circled around. Same with camping out there for a week. And then, you know, when I transitioned into the road and did the pro racing thing, like there was, there was none of that like you had no, there just wasn't. There just wasn't really a community. You went out and you did your job, you know, that was great who hopefully you have a good race if not you move onto the next one. But with gravel now it really takes me back to when I first fell in love with bikes and you know, that was that community part of it and being out there and you make a full weekend out of it, then you're just hanging out with people like that's such a huge draw of it.

And I think that's something, you know, as mountain biking has declined and you know, people got into road racing. That's really been a, a big, you know, kind of big missing piece or cycling. Um, now we, now we have it again and there's so many. There's like events like grinder or where it isn't just a one day ride, it's a full weekend event and Grapes of Wrath which is put on by the guys that put on a rock cobbler. Again, a full weekend event where is not just encouraged, you know, for you to be there the whole weekend. It's kind of mandatory is what is what it's all about. So I, you know, I hope that there's more and more events like that and you know, Rebecca's prime died but which is coming up, you know, Labor Day weekend. That's, that's a perfect example again of being out there and Rebecca has created just like this community of people to go experience her favorite writing and guess what, it's turned out that like people want that because these events that have just been nothing but growth.

Yeah. I think today's gravel athletes are looking for new terrain. They're looking for all the community and you know, post race barbecues and camping that you're describing. And to me it is like my experience with mountain biking as well. I remember signing up for mountain bike events primarily because I knew someone had taken the time to create a course in a different part of the country that I could get to and I'd get to go experience some new terrain without overthinking the navigation piece of it.

Yeah, no, it's true. And I think even better with what's fun with gravel and you know, I hope we don't start seeing like a lot like mountain biking where you do like four laps or something like that. I, I see gravel is like this exploration and this adventure, so going out and doing one big ass flap, whether it's 80 miles or 200 miles, whatever it is, 50 miles, as long as you're seeing something really cool and you're getting to experience whatever this area is and what's special and unique to the area. I'm, that's, that's really, those are the events that really intrigued me and it turns out like you can be in Nebraska or Kansas or bakersfield and on the dirt bike there is so much cool stuff to see out there. Like on the road road, the road surface, you can ride through some great areas, but road surface never changes and I think with gravel, the gravel events, you know, one of the, one of the key things is that you really never know what you're getting in each area with the type of terrain you're gonna get. And that's just a whole different. Just a whole different element that makes you have to stay really checked in and engaged with what you're doing and very much in the moment.

Yeah, totally agree. And for the middle of the pack guys such as myself, just finding those different areas to ride in and the unique adventure of being all over the map. Like I was down at the old growth classic this weekend down by Santa Cruz and I hiked on some of that terrain and written some of the legal stuff, but I'd never kind of created this massive loop. So there was times I had no idea where I was, but it just kept plugging away and enjoy the fact that I was just discovering this terrain in a different way and give big props to that course designer because you just created a hard loop that, that tested the equipment across the board, depending on which end of the spectrum you are on. If you had the big fat tires or narrow tires, there are parts of the course that we're going to suit either or. But no one left that course thinking I had the right equipment for every single pedal stroke, which I think is the hallmark of great gravel course design.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's, it's, it's pretty fun to like be underbite not all the time but like be in situations where you're like, ah yeah, I, you know, yeah, a mountain bike would be good here. But as a whole, looking at it as the entire course as a whole course, like you know, often the gravel bike is, is the ideal setup and that, you know, the old growth classic like Dallas, like that looks like a special event that they put together and that area has like, you know, you have the grasshopper adventure series up there and like they're. So there's so many great, like Kinda grassroots style events to choose from.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm stoked to see how it's grown all over the country really. I keep hearing about new events thinking, oh I want to go down and do that. And I was stoked that I would just happen stance took me down to southern California and as able to do that big bear event because previously the only other one I'd done was gravel mob, which I totally love.

Yeah. Yeah. Gravel. Mom's a great one in. Oh, hi there. And unfortunately like all of that, all those mountains burned, you know, this past this past year. So hopefully they, hopefully they're still able to put on the event, you know, and it, it won't be maybe quite as beautiful, but that just, that whole area is, is really spectacular up above Ohio.

Yeah. I just actually got an email alert from the guys at Peloton magazine and it's definitely on.

Oh good. Then yeah, that's, that's great to hear. They do a good job with it. I've done it a couple times and it's so hard day in the saddle, that's for sure.

Yeah, it's another fun one. Soup to nuts I think.

Yeah. Yeah. And then like, you know, as, as you're talking about you finish up, give high fives, grab a beer, grab Tacos, everyone's hanging out for hours afterward, Sharon stories and no one is eager to get out of there. Um, so pretty special vibe.

Absolutely. So I'm curious as someone who's raced a lot of these events, at least kind of on the west coast, the events are going a couple of different directions. You Got Short, fast, punchy events and then you've got other events exploring kind of the ultra distance side of the sport. Like with the Dk xl this year, what's your reaction to, to what's going on in terms of the length of course race, the race is, etc.

I, I really liked that. There's so many optIons now. The basically, you know, lIke dirty kanza scares the crap out of me and so that makes me want to train and be able to like be as prepared as possible just to get through it, but I don't want, I don't want that feeling more than once or twice a year. So then to have opportunities for something like spandex stampede where it's 40 to 45 miles and you can be done in two and a half, three hours and then just kind of hanging out. I Think those are like, that's kind of how I like to do it. Like mixing stuff like spandex, um, rock cobbler. I think it's really cool that all of the sudden we have opportunity to kind of pick and choose. Whereas five years ago it was like, whoa, what do you know? There's a gravel event in California.

Cool, let's go do it. Now we have, you know, probably 20 good choices, you know, over the course of the summer. Um, so they, they all kind of, they all speak to me in different ways and you know, I probably am not going to be signing up for dk xl anytime soon. I think, you know, I've told jim come into the promoter like 200 and you know, the course is actually 207 miles for the, for the normal dk. That's more than enough for me. So I think I kind of tapped out at that 200 mile distance personally.

Yeah. I don't blame you at all. I think 200 is a monster effort, one of which full disclosure, I've never done an in any circumstances you're adding 200 miles. So anybody who crosses that finish line I think is amazing. I do think on the xcel side is going to be interesting because the quote unquote racers that you hear about it, it's a different type of character that's going to want to do those, that type of mileage. I mean you're kind of getting into tour divide territory more than kind of one day bike race territory.

Yeah, it's really interesting. And just to see like who is successful out there? Like Rebecca Rush, you know, she, I think ended up for overall out of men and women and you know, just dominated the women's field. Whereas she was up against a couple women that maybe in the 200 mile distance at this point could have eat rebecca. So it's just as, as you stretch the mile out, almost double the amount of miles, like the different types of athletes emerge that, you Know, seems crazy to say 200 miles is too short for them. But it's kinda kinda how it is.

Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean it goes back to my original arrival in gravel. I credit more towards the notion of bike packing, then gravel itself. I just sort of became fascinated in those overnight and multi day and month long races that people were doing and started following them and looking at the equipment. And that got me thinking just a lot more about adventure in my writing and something that was sorely needed in my life as a cyclist at that moment in time. And I kind of got drawn in and I'd never done any of those bike packing races. But that's what got my toe in the water and started becoming so passionate about gravel riding in general.

Yeah, that's, that's cool. So interestingly enough, I, like I would say I started on the other side of the spectrum. My, it was the racing side that brought me into it and you know, I wanted to go, I want to do, you know, when belgian waffle ride and, and when crusher and the tuscher and I wanted to win dirty kanza and it took me, took me a few years to, you know, of course I would still love to go when dirty kanza that's just not reality now. But I would say early on it was, that was kind of my main. That was my biggest goal and my first dirty kanza ever. I went into it and I was so incredibly fit. Just basically did pro mile leading up to it and really wanted to win it and had my rear derailleur break off 25 miles in. and it was like at that moment I was like, okay, well I'm not racing races over how can I finish?

And I was on the side of the road for an hour, rigging up a single speed and did the next 175 miles on a single speed and was able to finish. And the real kind of eyeopening experience was riding with the people I was around, which were mid to back of the pack typewriters. Um, because I was really limited on how fast I could go because of my, my gear ratio and the people out there were like. So I went into it thinking, okay, I just want to dominate. I want to win this thing. And these other people, it was such, such a different task for them. They were, they were literally just trying to survive to get through it. And really from then on really changed my thinking and going, you know, going to these events and look at the bigger picture. and it's not just about racing and trying to go fast, it's, it's such a marginal part of the day. And so I always try and remind myself and I, you know, I, I can't win many races anymore, but still like that, that's an experience that like just really remains with me and I'm really fortunate. I feel fortunate for having that happened to me because it, it really just opened my eyes to everything around me.

Yeah. I imagine it really shaped your professional perspective in working with brands at this point that just to have that visceral understanding of like, hey, these guys, they don't really care if someone passes them. They don't really care if they pass anybody else. They're just really. they're out there for the adventure. And the adventure includes everything between the start line and the finish line.

Yep. And, and they're the real, like they're the ones that need to be celebrated at 1:00 AM, you know, a dirty cans or any event like that. That's kind of, you know, the mid back, the people, they're working way harder. They have such such a harder day than the people that are finishing in the top three, top 10. They are what they go through out there just to will themselves to the finish of some of these big long events. It's really inspiring.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. totally agree wIth you and I think those sentiments are really wide. There's such a huge opportunity for the industry with the sport of gravel because we can really. the event organizers continue to create the community atmosphere and the great adventure courses. I think people come in and will continue to come into the sport and discover that it is really this gem that is right there at their fingertips and right outside a lot of people's doors are these back roads and dirt roads that can show them parts of their community that they never even imagined before.

Yeah. It's just. It's just fun. Like for me, It's brought to open the door. Even though I've lived in the same area for eight years. when I go out on the gravel bike, it's like I have all new rides available to me and I don't want to get like negative and talk about cars and drivers, but when I'm, when I'm on a dirt road or a trail somewhere, I don't have to worry about anything going on around me. I can just focus on my ride and enjoying and kind of let my, you know, a little bit of peace of mind and you know, if I'm going out in the middle of the day for a lunch ride, that kinda decompressor it's great. Just going in and hitting dirk. I don't have anything else to think about.

Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of peace to be had out there on the gravel trails. So neil, this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate all the time and your perspective on the sport and your continued commitment to growing it.

Yeah, it's, as I told you before, I, I can talk about driving all day, so it's really fun. It's, you know, the scene is brought me, kind of renewed, my passion for writing, so it's great to be on the podcast. Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome. ThankS for coming in. All right man. That was great. I think we've got some good material.

Good deal. Yeah. Well thanks again for thinking of me. I'm stoked to, uh, to be a part of this.

Craig Dalton: 00:00 This afternoon everyone, I've got Heidi Myers from the race name. I'm going to butcher, they have a great gravel event that's been going five years in Vermont. It's Raspustitsa How did I do Heidi?

Heidi Myers: 00:00 Pretty good!

Craig Dalton: 00:15 Well, I'm excited to talk to you. I love the state of Vermont and when you reached out and I looked into your event, it just looked really cool. I always like to start off the podcast by having our guests talk a little bit about what their journey was to becoming a cyclist and how they discovered gravel riding. So we'd love to learn a little bit more about you.

Heidi Myers: 00:33 Yeah, so I've worked in the cycling industry for 16 years. I work my full time job that feeds my family as I'm marketing strategist for a Garneau. I've worked with the CO founder of Raspustitsa for many years. He was an outside sales rep and it was actually his decision. His name is anthony. He wanted to put on some type of event and that was six years ago now when gravel is a lot more new to the scene than anything. So we were pretty inspired by like the Almonzo that was the first event that really inspired us. d

Craig Dalton: 01:16 And where was that one?

Heidi Myers: 01:18 That is in Minnesota, I believe, what they were doing. And so we, we took a gamble and we knew nothing about organizing an event or anything like that. So our first event brought like 250 people and now it sells out at 1500. So in five years we've experienced some tremendous growth.

Craig Dalton: 01:42 That's amazing. Tell us about that first event and what the course was like and going back six years, we're really talking about, you know, probably a lot of people riding on cross bikes and the early introduction of disc brakes into gravel bikes.

Heidi Myers: 01:58 Yeah, definitely the first events. I mean I'll be completely honest and transparent. We live in northern Vermont so many months out of the year the roads are snow covered, so a lot of people spend a lot of time indoors trainers or if you're brave enough on Fat bikes and and whatnot. We actually mapped the course during the winter months and then a few months before the actual race we got up there, we were riding it and we came to this section that the road no longer really was that visible. So I had called Anthony, I was on course and I said, Anthony, there is no road. And he's like, what do you mean there's no road? I'm like, it kind of goes into a snow field, just ends like. And so he looked at the map and what, what he had designed, had a class 4 section of road and that's a section in New England that is not plowed all winter is not maintained all winter. So there is a road there. It's just becomes a un-navigatable in the winter months. So at that point we had already released the course and actually became our biggest or greatest mistake, um, because we ended up calling that five K section Siberia. I'm so every year there's a section called Siberia, which is just that. It's a class four section. And the great thing about Vermont is freaking Vermont can be many different things. We've had 70 degree race days in spring. We've had 40 degree race days with snow. So what that, what the race brings each year evolved on its own. You'd never really know what to expect. Um, when racing tire choice really becomes super crucial. And up to the last minute decisions class four. Yeah, it's a class for road.

Craig Dalton: 04:09 And does that just mean like to the riders that it's a little bit of a mystery what they're gonna, what they're gonna encounter in that given year depending on the weather conditions.

Heidi Myers: 04:18 Yeah, I mean it typically is a hike a bike, again, it depends on your weapon of choice. So a lot of that by category and so those guys are able to cruise through. But I mean we have some riders like Ant doing it on, road slicks.

Craig Dalton: 04:39 And is that part of the course designed for you guys that you want to make it a very thoughtful choice for each individual rider as to what bike of choice is going to look like?

Heidi Myers: 04:49 Yeah, and I mean those are questions we refrain from answering because it just depends on what type of writer you are, depends on the conditions. It really comes down to the last minute. I mean, the weather last year was fine. The night before the race it snowed about two inches. So it's really, it's really a last minute, call it a personal choice and that, that makes it a race. I mean, it makes it a race for everybody regardless of your level because it really evens the playing field.

Craig Dalton: 05:23 Yeah. I think that's one of the really fun things about this idea that so many different people will have so many different types of equipment in their garage and can bring so many different weapons of choice to any given event. It just makes it a lot of fun. I think, you know, in the early days of mountain biking you saw that as well where there's just a ton of experimentation with equipment and whether it was different types of suspension or or different types of tires. It was all just who knows what's gonna work best, we just got to give it a try.

Heidi Myers: 06:00 Exactly.

Craig Dalton: 06:01 So that's great. So over the last five years you said obviously the race has grown tremendously in size 1500 person gravel event in for Vermont just seems like a huge event. What's it been like over that journey? Scaling Up the Organization of the event has become incredibly complicated for you and Anthony to pull off. Do you have a big team involved now?

Heidi Myers: 06:26 We don't have a big team involved. It's still primarily just that. I mean we have some great volunteers and some great sponsors. I behind the scenes and I think we've been able to pull it off consistently just because it is and we, we honed in on every single detail and we always put rider safety and happiness and we've really come to know like a lot of our riders, like 1500 riders lining up, so I can't tell you I know them all, but I probably know it gets 300 of them really well so it's really become like a family event.

Craig Dalton: 07:02 It's Kinda like coming out of hibernation, gravel cycling community and, and get back together and celebrate getting out on the road

Heidi Myers: 07:11 The community has been really great to come be in. This past year we had Ted King and Allison Tetrick and Jeremy Powers and Anthony Clark, you know, just to name a few and they're lining up at the mass start so everybody's lining up together and it was interesting. Jeremy powers like lined up mid field just to make it a social pace for him.

Craig Dalton: 07:37 Yeah, absolutely. What would you say from a percentage perspective, are the people who are really racing at the front versus people that are just out there for the adventure of it all?

Heidi Myers: 07:49 Of racers? It's a small crowd. I mean it's probably less than a hundred that are really full throttle out there. We respect those guys when they're essential to our age that we have to cater to the people out there braving the elements and just trying to get through. So we do a lot of quirky things on course. We serve maple syrup in ice shot glasses. I'm so all year long. We've made shot classes out of ice and we served maple syrup and then so the rider can take a shot of maple syrup and then toss the glass without any environmental destruction. And we've done like a Specialized sponsored this wheel of death on course last year. Where you've potentially had to like sing a David Bowie song or, or chug a beer. Many crazy things.

Craig Dalton: 08:44 Quick sidebar. How does one make an ice shot glass?

Heidi Myers: 08:48 Yeah. So we actually have silicone molds of, but it's an intense process, like pretty much right. Thanksgiving we have to start. We've had to purchase ice chest freezers to pull it off because uh, you know, 1500 shot glasses to make in advance. It's every night and every day we're, we're making it.

Craig Dalton: 09:12 I can only imagine. Well that will definitely be a special treat. Going back to what you were saying about the percentage of racers, I think that's, for me, that's one of the things I really enjoy right now about the time in which we are in the gravel racing scene as you go. When you line up with these well known x pros or current pros and it, you know, they're off the front and you're enjoying your race and at the end of the day you're all enjoying a beer afterwards and some food and there's just a great community around gravel cycling.

Heidi Myers: 09:43 The community is amazing in all aspects in, at all levels. And I, you know, been in the cycling industry for awhile and I think, I think in the gravel you see that more than any other segment of cycling.

Craig Dalton: 09:56 Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I know Vermont, for example, has a great history in the cyclocross scene and I imagine some of the gravel seen their draws from it, but gravel seems to have something special in particular about it. Maybe the length of the events or the, the uh, adventure orientation of the courses. I just think people tend to really gel and work together as a community to pull them off and enjoy the day.

Heidi Myers: 10:24 Yeah. And encourage each other. I mean we've grown our women's demographic and our demographic pretty extensively. So for the past few years, like the 23, the price to enter is, it's not free very, very minimal just to cover our costs because we saw that as a small portion of our demographic and we asked ourselves like, alright, if you were already why wouldn't you be doing this race? And the easiest answer was cost. So we've grown that a demographic hugely. Then the women's. So we have, um, it's great, really supportive women's community that has their own facebook group page and encourages other women riders and we have Olympia and Leah Davidson's mom, um, she comes out and she prints the list of all the women participating for the women by name, says like, you know, there's just huge enthusiasm there. The race itself donates all of its profits to Little Bella is the nonprofit founded by Leah and Saber Davidson. Um, so last year we, we cut them a check for $20,000,

Craig Dalton: 11:45 Going back to the race course. I'm super curious. I've done a little bit of mountain biking in Vermont previously, but, tell me a little bit more in detail about what riders would expect the types of roads or climbs or trails or the getting on single track in Vermont or is it more a gravel road riding?

Heidi Myers: 12:08 I think we can claim it's probably about 90 percent gravel roads. There's a few paved sections just to transition riders, but it says 90 percent grapples. It's really rural remote areas. There's about over 4,000 feet of climbing and 40 miles. Um, so it's, there's definitely kills and it's up and down the hallway and then there's that class 4 section a which was actually part of mountain bike trails this past year, but sometimes that changes year to year. That's just this really challenging section, which it almost ends up looking like a military because people are single file through that section just trying to get through. And I mean every year the course changes. So we've done a cyclocross finished one year, a Siberia section was changed to spend five k one year and one mile one year.

Craig Dalton: 13:11 Has it been the same style bike that's been winning the fast guys and girl category each year? Or has it varied in terms of what people are showing up with?

New Speaker: 13:22 I mean it varies of what people are showing up with for sure. Um, it's typically always a cross bike, but you know, we have single speeds, we have tandem, we have mountain bikers, we have fat bikes, we have roadies a way across like. So we pretty much run the full gamut. Like if you have a bike and you have the will to do the race,

Craig Dalton: 13:49 I noticed this year you've got a fall event as well. Is that new for this year?

Heidi Myers: 13:54 Yeah. So it's somewhat new. So the first event we actually ever did was called the30 40 and had we did that in 2013 and this is kind of a comeback to that event and the new version. So we changed the name but, it's pretty exciting. There's 8,000 feet of climbing and there's a 100 miles. And there's a 50 mile route. So there's two courses. There's camp overnight camping available and Specialized in sponsoring this outdoor movie theater at the camp camp site. It's at this really cool to stay in Bradenton, Vermont called the Old Stone House, which was a boarding school built by the first African American college graduate. Um, so it, it's really like back to like Vermont's vintage roots and it's got that kind of feel and um, it's a little bit inspired by Johnny cash and we're working a zero waste policy for that. So every rider, when they cross the finish line will get a custom pie plate and a custom insulated milk bottle that they can go through the food line with. So there's no paper products being used because that's just one thing that we've tried to focus on as we've grown.

Craig Dalton: 15:13 Yeah. I think all these, all these little things add up to make special and memorable. And the Nice thing about you guys been working on this for five, six years now as you're developing a reputation that every year people can show up and they're gonna have a good time. The flavor will be slightly different, but they know and trust that you've got it dialed. So if they're looking for a place to travel to race, I imagine this is a good event to target.

Heidi Myers: 15:42 Yeah, definitely. Um, and there's live music at all our events. So that's of theme every year. Last year the theme was David Bowie. For 2019, the theme will be Prince. So you can expect to see some purple.

Craig Dalton: 16:01 That's great.

Heidi Myers: 16:03 Yeah. We actually had last year we had a David Bowie cover band, which was phenomenal the night before the race and then this year there'll be a Prince cover band. So, there's like a concert

Craig Dalton: 16:20 Now for people coming from outside the region. What's going to be the best way to, to get into that neck of the woods?

Heidi Myers: 16:29 Yeah. They would probably fly into Burlington, Vermont or Manchester, New Hampshire and probably have to read the car. We've worked with Bike Flights every year to get, you know, your bikes in and arrived safely and with, there's multiple shops in East Burke because they're home to kingdom trails, so they're really used to the culture and the bike traffic. Um, so there's multiple bike shops there that can receive your bike and get it, get it all ready for you. Um, but it is a little bit in the middle of nowhere, so it's like an hour and a half from the airport.

Craig Dalton: 17:03 Right. So you better be ready for an adventure.

Heidi Myers: 17:07 Yeah, it's an adventure for sure.

Craig Dalton: 17:10 Well, I'm excited about that. I love learning about new events in different parts of the parts of the country. I think that's really going to be a fun part of the next few years in gravel riding, using events as a way of discovering new parts of the country and new communities. One thing we know, and it's been obvious to you that you know if I drop it in there or someone from the west coast drops in there, it's just going to be like the communities we have out here. It's going to be very embracing and fun and you'll find that the guys and girls that you're going to be riding with whatever section of the race you're going to be in and everybody's going to be helpful and fun and have a laugh and really looking forward to getting to the finish line and just celebrating the achievement of a good hard day out.

Heidi Myers: 17:53 Definitely. Definitely this year. So we're actually planning on traveling to Dirty Kanza . So we've renovated an old school bus and set up totally wrapped in the outside. We're redoing the inside right now as we speak, so that should be our Gravel Travel machine coming through.

Craig Dalton: 18:22 It reminds me of a national mountain bike racing scene in the early days and a company called a Retrotec, had a school bus and I remember thinking that was great. You would see riders just basically hitch a ride to the national on that bus in an ad hoc fashion.

Heidi Myers: 18:42 That's awesome.

Craig Dalton: 18:43 Yeah. Yeah. Again, I can't. For me, it's so amazing to to remind myself of those days and I'm so reminded and invigorated in the gravel scene right now from those days because as I said before, it was so nice being part of the early days of the mountain bike community and I'm feeling those same sensations, which for me as a, you know, as a father and a husband who struggles to find time to ride my bike as much as I'd like. It's just little things like that to reinvigorate me to get out there and get back on my bike and put events on my calendar to get out there and stay fit.

Heidi Myers: 19:21 Yeah,

Craig Dalton: 19:24 yeah, absolutely. Well, I appreciate the time, Heidi today. It was great to get to know you and get to know the event. Hopefully some of my listeners from around the country can put it on their calendars for next year and get out there. I, for one, would be eager to try some of those ice shot glasses with maple syrup in it. It sounds spectacular.

Craig Dalton: 00:00 This afternoon everyone, I've got Heidi Myers from the race name. I'm going to butcher, they have a great gravel event that's been going five years in Vermont. It's Raspustitsa How did I do Heidi?

Heidi Myers: 00:00 Pretty good!

Craig Dalton: 00:15 Well, I'm excited to talk to you. I love the state of Vermont and when you reached out and I looked into your event, it just looked really cool. I always like to start off the podcast by having our guests talk a little bit about what their journey was to becoming a cyclist and how they discovered gravel riding. So we'd love to learn a little bit more about you.

Heidi Myers: 00:33 Yeah, so I've worked in the cycling industry for 16 years. I work my full time job that feeds my family as I'm marketing strategist for a Garneau. I've worked with the CO founder of Raspustitsa for many years. He was an outside sales rep and it was actually his decision. His name is anthony. He wanted to put on some type of event and that was six years ago now when gravel is a lot more new to the scene than anything. So we were pretty inspired by like the Almonzo that was the first event that really inspired us. d

Craig Dalton: 01:16 And where was that one?

Heidi Myers: 01:18 That is in Minnesota, I believe, what they were doing. And so we, we took a gamble and we knew nothing about organizing an event or anything like that. So our first event brought like 250 people and now it sells out at 1500. So in five years we've experienced some tremendous growth.

Craig Dalton: 01:42 That's amazing. Tell us about that first event and what the course was like and going back six years, we're really talking about, you know, probably a lot of people riding on cross bikes and the early introduction of disc brakes into gravel bikes.

Heidi Myers: 01:58 Yeah, definitely the first events. I mean I'll be completely honest and transparent. We live in northern Vermont so many months out of the year the roads are snow covered, so a lot of people spend a lot of time indoors trainers or if you're brave enough on Fat bikes and and whatnot. We actually mapped the course during the winter months and then a few months before the actual race we got up there, we were riding it and we came to this section that the road no longer really was that visible. So I had called Anthony, I was on course and I said, Anthony, there is no road. And he's like, what do you mean there's no road? I'm like, it kind of goes into a snow field, just ends like. And so he looked at the map and what, what he had designed, had a class 4 section of road and that's a section in New England that is not plowed all winter is not maintained all winter. So there is a road there. It's just becomes a un-navigatable in the winter months. So at that point we had already released the course and actually became our biggest or greatest mistake, um, because we ended up calling that five K section Siberia. I'm so every year there's a section called Siberia, which is just that. It's a class four section. And the great thing about Vermont is freaking Vermont can be many different things. We've had 70 degree race days in spring. We've had 40 degree race days with snow. So what that, what the race brings each year evolved on its own. You'd never really know what to expect. Um, when racing tire choice really becomes super crucial. And up to the last minute decisions class four. Yeah, it's a class for road.

Craig Dalton: 04:09 And does that just mean like to the riders that it's a little bit of a mystery what they're gonna, what they're gonna encounter in that given year depending on the weather conditions.

Heidi Myers: 04:18 Yeah, I mean it typically is a hike a bike, again, it depends on your weapon of choice. So a lot of that by category and so those guys are able to cruise through. But I mean we have some riders like Ant doing it on, road slicks.

Craig Dalton: 04:39 And is that part of the course designed for you guys that you want to make it a very thoughtful choice for each individual rider as to what bike of choice is going to look like?

Heidi Myers: 04:49 Yeah, and I mean those are questions we refrain from answering because it just depends on what type of writer you are, depends on the conditions. It really comes down to the last minute. I mean, the weather last year was fine. The night before the race it snowed about two inches. So it's really, it's really a last minute, call it a personal choice and that, that makes it a race. I mean, it makes it a race for everybody regardless of your level because it really evens the playing field.

Craig Dalton: 05:23 Yeah. I think that's one of the really fun things about this idea that so many different people will have so many different types of equipment in their garage and can bring so many different weapons of choice to any given event. It just makes it a lot of fun. I think, you know, in the early days of mountain biking you saw that as well where there's just a ton of experimentation with equipment and whether it was different types of suspension or or different types of tires. It was all just who knows what's gonna work best, we just got to give it a try.

Heidi Myers: 06:00 Exactly.

Craig Dalton: 06:01 So that's great. So over the last five years you said obviously the race has grown tremendously in size 1500 person gravel event in for Vermont just seems like a huge event. What's it been like over that journey? Scaling Up the Organization of the event has become incredibly complicated for you and Anthony to pull off. Do you have a big team involved now?

Heidi Myers: 06:26 We don't have a big team involved. It's still primarily just that. I mean we have some great volunteers and some great sponsors. I behind the scenes and I think we've been able to pull it off consistently just because it is and we, we honed in on every single detail and we always put rider safety and happiness and we've really come to know like a lot of our riders, like 1500 riders lining up, so I can't tell you I know them all, but I probably know it gets 300 of them really well so it's really become like a family event.

Craig Dalton: 07:02 It's Kinda like coming out of hibernation, gravel cycling community and, and get back together and celebrate getting out on the road

Heidi Myers: 07:11 The community has been really great to come be in. This past year we had Ted King and Allison Tetrick and Jeremy Powers and Anthony Clark, you know, just to name a few and they're lining up at the mass start so everybody's lining up together and it was interesting. Jeremy powers like lined up mid field just to make it a social pace for him.

Craig Dalton: 07:37 Yeah, absolutely. What would you say from a percentage perspective, are the people who are really racing at the front versus people that are just out there for the adventure of it all?

Heidi Myers: 07:49 Of racers? It's a small crowd. I mean it's probably less than a hundred that are really full throttle out there. We respect those guys when they're essential to our age that we have to cater to the people out there braving the elements and just trying to get through. So we do a lot of quirky things on course. We serve maple syrup in ice shot glasses. I'm so all year long. We've made shot classes out of ice and we served maple syrup and then so the rider can take a shot of maple syrup and then toss the glass without any environmental destruction. And we've done like a Specialized sponsored this wheel of death on course last year. Where you've potentially had to like sing a David Bowie song or, or chug a beer. Many crazy things.

Craig Dalton: 08:44 Quick sidebar. How does one make an ice shot glass?

Heidi Myers: 08:48 Yeah. So we actually have silicone molds of, but it's an intense process, like pretty much right. Thanksgiving we have to start. We've had to purchase ice chest freezers to pull it off because uh, you know, 1500 shot glasses to make in advance. It's every night and every day we're, we're making it.

Craig Dalton: 09:12 I can only imagine. Well that will definitely be a special treat. Going back to what you were saying about the percentage of racers, I think that's, for me, that's one of the things I really enjoy right now about the time in which we are in the gravel racing scene as you go. When you line up with these well known x pros or current pros and it, you know, they're off the front and you're enjoying your race and at the end of the day you're all enjoying a beer afterwards and some food and there's just a great community around gravel cycling.

Heidi Myers: 09:43 The community is amazing in all aspects in, at all levels. And I, you know, been in the cycling industry for awhile and I think, I think in the gravel you see that more than any other segment of cycling.

Craig Dalton: 09:56 Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I know Vermont, for example, has a great history in the cyclocross scene and I imagine some of the gravel seen their draws from it, but gravel seems to have something special in particular about it. Maybe the length of the events or the, the uh, adventure orientation of the courses. I just think people tend to really gel and work together as a community to pull them off and enjoy the day.

Heidi Myers: 10:24 Yeah. And encourage each other. I mean we've grown our women's demographic and our demographic pretty extensively. So for the past few years, like the 23, the price to enter is, it's not free very, very minimal just to cover our costs because we saw that as a small portion of our demographic and we asked ourselves like, alright, if you were already why wouldn't you be doing this race? And the easiest answer was cost. So we've grown that a demographic hugely. Then the women's. So we have, um, it's great, really supportive women's community that has their own facebook group page and encourages other women riders and we have Olympia and Leah Davidson's mom, um, she comes out and she prints the list of all the women participating for the women by name, says like, you know, there's just huge enthusiasm there. The race itself donates all of its profits to Little Bella is the nonprofit founded by Leah and Saber Davidson. Um, so last year we, we cut them a check for $20,000,

Craig Dalton: 11:45 Going back to the race course. I'm super curious. I've done a little bit of mountain biking in Vermont previously, but, tell me a little bit more in detail about what riders would expect the types of roads or climbs or trails or the getting on single track in Vermont or is it more a gravel road riding?

Heidi Myers: 12:08 I think we can claim it's probably about 90 percent gravel roads. There's a few paved sections just to transition riders, but it says 90 percent grapples. It's really rural remote areas. There's about over 4,000 feet of climbing and 40 miles. Um, so it's, there's definitely kills and it's up and down the hallway and then there's that class 4 section a which was actually part of mountain bike trails this past year, but sometimes that changes year to year. That's just this really challenging section, which it almost ends up looking like a military because people are single file through that section just trying to get through. And I mean every year the course changes. So we've done a cyclocross finished one year, a Siberia section was changed to spend five k one year and one mile one year.

Craig Dalton: 13:11 Has it been the same style bike that's been winning the fast guys and girl category each year? Or has it varied in terms of what people are showing up with?

New Speaker: 13:22 I mean it varies of what people are showing up with for sure. Um, it's typically always a cross bike, but you know, we have single speeds, we have tandem, we have mountain bikers, we have fat bikes, we have roadies a way across like. So we pretty much run the full gamut. Like if you have a bike and you have the will to do the race,

Craig Dalton: 13:49 I noticed this year you've got a fall event as well. Is that new for this year?

Heidi Myers: 13:54 Yeah. So it's somewhat new. So the first event we actually ever did was called the30 40 and had we did that in 2013 and this is kind of a comeback to that event and the new version. So we changed the name but, it's pretty exciting. There's 8,000 feet of climbing and there's a 100 miles. And there's a 50 mile route. So there's two courses. There's camp overnight camping available and Specialized in sponsoring this outdoor movie theater at the camp camp site. It's at this really cool to stay in Bradenton, Vermont called the Old Stone House, which was a boarding school built by the first African American college graduate. Um, so it, it's really like back to like Vermont's vintage roots and it's got that kind of feel and um, it's a little bit inspired by Johnny cash and we're working a zero waste policy for that. So every rider, when they cross the finish line will get a custom pie plate and a custom insulated milk bottle that they can go through the food line with. So there's no paper products being used because that's just one thing that we've tried to focus on as we've grown.

Craig Dalton: 15:13 Yeah. I think all these, all these little things add up to make special and memorable. And the Nice thing about you guys been working on this for five, six years now as you're developing a reputation that every year people can show up and they're gonna have a good time. The flavor will be slightly different, but they know and trust that you've got it dialed. So if they're looking for a place to travel to race, I imagine this is a good event to target.

Heidi Myers: 15:42 Yeah, definitely. Um, and there's live music at all our events. So that's of theme every year. Last year the theme was David Bowie. For 2019, the theme will be Prince. So you can expect to see some purple.

Craig Dalton: 16:01 That's great.

Heidi Myers: 16:03 Yeah. We actually had last year we had a David Bowie cover band, which was phenomenal the night before the race and then this year there'll be a Prince cover band. So, there's like a concert

Craig Dalton: 16:20 Now for people coming from outside the region. What's going to be the best way to, to get into that neck of the woods?

Heidi Myers: 16:29 Yeah. They would probably fly into Burlington, Vermont or Manchester, New Hampshire and probably have to read the car. We've worked with Bike Flights every year to get, you know, your bikes in and arrived safely and with, there's multiple shops in East Burke because they're home to kingdom trails, so they're really used to the culture and the bike traffic. Um, so there's multiple bike shops there that can receive your bike and get it, get it all ready for you. Um, but it is a little bit in the middle of nowhere, so it's like an hour and a half from the airport.

Craig Dalton: 17:03 Right. So you better be ready for an adventure.

Heidi Myers: 17:07 Yeah, it's an adventure for sure.

Craig Dalton: 17:10 Well, I'm excited about that. I love learning about new events in different parts of the parts of the country. I think that's really going to be a fun part of the next few years in gravel riding, using events as a way of discovering new parts of the country and new communities. One thing we know, and it's been obvious to you that you know if I drop it in there or someone from the west coast drops in there, it's just going to be like the communities we have out here. It's going to be very embracing and fun and you'll find that the guys and girls that you're going to be riding with whatever section of the race you're going to be in and everybody's going to be helpful and fun and have a laugh and really looking forward to getting to the finish line and just celebrating the achievement of a good hard day out.

Heidi Myers: 17:53 Definitely. Definitely this year. So we're actually planning on traveling to Dirty Kanza . So we've renovated an old school bus and set up totally wrapped in the outside. We're redoing the inside right now as we speak, so that should be our Gravel Travel machine coming through.

Craig Dalton: 18:22 It reminds me of a national mountain bike racing scene in the early days and a company called a Retrotec, had a school bus and I remember thinking that was great. You would see riders just basically hitch a ride to the national on that bus in an ad hoc fashion.

Heidi Myers: 18:42 That's awesome.

Craig Dalton: 18:43 Yeah. Yeah. Again, I can't. For me, it's so amazing to to remind myself of those days and I'm so reminded and invigorated in the gravel scene right now from those days because as I said before, it was so nice being part of the early days of the mountain bike community and I'm feeling those same sensations, which for me as a, you know, as a father and a husband who struggles to find time to ride my bike as much as I'd like. It's just little things like that to reinvigorate me to get out there and get back on my bike and put events on my calendar to get out there and stay fit.

Heidi Myers: 19:21 Yeah,

Craig Dalton: 19:24 yeah, absolutely. Well, I appreciate the time, Heidi today. It was great to get to know you and get to know the event. Hopefully some of my listeners from around the country can put it on their calendars for next year and get out there. I, for one, would be eager to try some of those ice shot glasses with maple syrup in it. It sounds spectacular.

Today everyone, I'm excited to bring Benedikt from Lauf to the podcast to learn more about the interesting forks and bikes that these guys have been making since 2010. Benedikt. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Glad to be here.

You're in Iceland today, so this is an international conversation!

Yeah it is kind of shitty over here now.

I know we've got to get you over here to Marin county. We've got a little bit of sunshine today and a lot of trails I'd love to explore with your product.

Yeah, that will be nice. So we're having the worst summer since the beginning of recording whether in Iceland. Wow. So the worst May being followed up with the worst June of all time.

So does that mean a lot of wet weather?

Mostly it means rain and like a yes, sub 10 degrees Celsius temperatures like Fahrenheit or so.

Well we definitely got to get you out to California then. I always like to start off by learning a little bit more about you as a cyclist and kind of what drove you to discover off road riding and gravel riding later.

I've always been into bikes, obviously a lifelong passion. And back here in Iceland it was. So I'm, what am I, 33 now, years old. So when I was growing up it was kind of in the middle of the mountain bike boom, where the, when the first suspension forks were hitting the market, uh, the first, uh, workshops for two, we're like really gaining momentum in the market back then. Nobody wrote anything about the mountain biking. I stamps there were no road bikes to speak of. Maybe a, maybe somebody old cousin or something, brought one home from his days in France or whatever, but it was all about mountain bikes. And, and you know, I'm in, back then mountain bikes were, yep. Close to what we know as scrambled bikes today basically. So it used to be called not the bags and that, and I enrolled them as such.

But in fact they were road bikes like we got under day. Uh, I've been writing a lot since early childhood, uh, and always been fascinated by like the same product and as a, as a small small tear that I've participated in, like some invention, uh, like contests here in Iceland, a and one a price as a 12 year old or what it was and I spent all my price money on buying a bike and then when I was complimented as that as a Christian, which happens when you're like 13 or 14 here, then I've got some presidents and then I used that money to buy a suspension for comment back. So it was a rock shot, judy t two four that dates it a little bit. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it's been all about bikes. It's funny when you look at it in retrospect. So I mean I had no idea this was coming at me.

It was never, it was never a goal in itself too to go into the biking industry, uh, because I mean there is no wash, no bike industry here in Iceland, but it Kinda just happens as a result of a lifelong passion for the topic. So yeah, I got my, got my masters in engineering, I actually did my master's in the US, so I studied in Manhattan, Columbia, did my master's there and I was always fascinated by a composites. Composites are what basically drove me into the cycling industry, so to speak. So I really wanted to initially, so back in 2007 or eight, I was studying, uh, uh, basically how to make my own carbon bike. A lot of people have, have done this and like, because it's fascinating, fascinating material. So I spent a lot of time on researching how to do all that, uh, coming to the conclusion in the end, but that it tricky to do start from level ground to make your own carbon bike.

You need to do a lot of testing and it need to have a lot of hands on experience, experience with material. So that got me thinking, where can I get a job in composites, which led me to work to a job at a which is nice landscape company, world's biggest a prosthetic maker, a worlds because high-end, prosthetic makeup and, and I worked there for awhile. The designing prosthetic feet, the carbon blades type. And that opened my eyes to so up until that point, carpooling was, yeah, like it is too, like it's still is to most designers. It is a way of making a really rich it then late structure that work in a prosthetic company. It made me realize that, that it's more than that. It's also about the fracture performance of the material, how long it can last. There's basically no fatigue in carbon.

The only fatigue in like composite products got carbon frames for example. It is the fatigue between the fibers. So when the epoxy resin between the fibers that get deteriorates over time, uh, but like the fibers themselves, they left forever. And this is amazing stuff. So, so realizing and seeing just with your bare eyes, how much flex and performance and, and, and load carrying capacity you can get out of our composite leaf spring. It's just ridiculous at which led me to think how can I use this to make, to improve your bicycle basically in the beginning and, and that question like fundamentally was not about just the actual performance, it was about how to use flex but still controlling the movement of the, of the path of the suspended. We'll uh, because as you know, when you have a suspended or not suspended, but like for gaming forks, say that's a really old steel like curved forks.

You can only take that concept so far if you make them like, like really, really thin and make them stretch far to the front and they become a way to noodley it's just you have no lateral support or front the back support and the structure. So that was like the key problem I was trying to address how to tie things together to control the flex basically. And that's. Yeah, love fork is the result of that. And were you able to prototype that locally and Iceland? Yeah. Uh, wish this a your limit. Then I could show you a short your first prototype, but it was crazy looking prototype made out of aluminum. You profile a beams, uh, in a way like what was it, 15 pounds or so, just the for a thing. Uh, but, but obviously it wasn't, it was not about achieving low weight at that point was just about proving that the suspension would be guided properly and then it will behave normally, so to speak and how we respond to a break forces and stuff like that.

So we did a series of these aluminum prototypes or first bringing them to the right, like stale, you mentioned live the right, the of suspension and, and uh, yeah, I think the break and enter into the concept and all that just to see if it worked. Which, yeah. Which it turned out to do. It works well, but then yeah, back then, yeah, we, we, we celebrated that achievement like we had won the World Cup or something. Uh, what we didn't realize then is that there was just like a fraction of the, of the task I had to make something that works and now as a matter of producing it and marketing it and finding the right application for it, etc. Etc. Etc. And that has been. Yeah. So, so we made these first prototypes back in 2011, late 2011. So ever since then we've been working on, on bringing it to the market and yeah more and more basically.

Yeah, as I mentioned to you, I had seen allow for probably back in 2012, 2013 here in San Francisco and I was intrigued by it. Uh, the riding around here, a lot of fire roads, stuff that you don't really need a lot of beefy suspension for. So on a hardtail twenty niner, which is where I saw the fork, it just made a ton of sense and for someone like myself who doesn't go uphill that quickly, having the weight weight advantages was really intriguing for me and I'd, I'd never seen anything like it. And I know the gentleman who wrote it, I thought a lot about hiS equipment, uh, so I remained intrigued by it never pulled the trigger on the mountain bike side, but as I got into the gravel market and sell your products kind of evolved into that field as well. The same light bulbs went off. So I'm curious to hear your perspective about when you started to see the influence of the gravel market and you started to see the application of your fork there.

So it's a, it's a fun question because in a way it has always been above rental bikes for us. It just weren't called rebel bikes, uh, back in the days. Uh, so, uh, and this was, this was really tricky with the mountain bike for because what we had done was that I'm still have, although we have, we've updated the mountain bike fork a substantially since way back in 2012. So that version is way improved now in the latest version. but at some of the story back then, yeah, we had basically had the gravel fork for mountain bikes are song people saw it. And, and, and this was a common misconception in the us basically, that this was a fork, a good on, on a mountain bike and then to like granola nasty, like, yeah, aggressive cross country riding or all month and writing a, but they've never been above that, that they've been more about a different iceland's, like you said in the presentation.

So back here, like the benchmark race, we have a, it's called the blue lagoon chance and it's a, it's a cross country, like an old style cross country race. Uh, and it's not super technical, but it has, but it has like a coarse surfaces, coarse gravel roads. Uh, so that is the type of writing that the four position initially made for basically turning mountain bikes into fast gravel bikes. Uh, but, but the problem we had there was that it was a, it was a tricky thing to explain because we were, in a way you could say that we were trying to invent rebel bikes.

Yeah, you absolutely were. I mean, I think if you think about the trends in mountain biking in that era, you were actually going the wrong direction. People were going greater and greater travel, talking about different categories like trail bikes and enduro bikes and here you addressing a problem that uh, you know, most people weren't perceiving for mountain bikes specifically.

Exactly. So we were kind of when people were asking for more, we were giving them less at, which was a kind of weird, weird situation. And often, I mean, we, we, we've, we've always thought that we were doing the right thing, but it wasn't like at the, at the right time and it didn't have the right market fits back man, like 12, 13, 14. I often visited some, some trail centers in the us where I wrote everything easily on my heart with allow fork and it was super nice, uh, and overtaking guys on, on, on, on, on mass. Massive or mountain bikes are on like buffed single tracks. Uh, so people are, yeah, they often have. Yeah. Two big bikes. The bikes are. But we do a big problem for people. Right. But I mean, but, but if people want to want to get those folks, then it's up to them. I mean, not saying that it's worse, but it, but it's, yeah,

yeah, it probably would have continued to be an uphill struggle to convince people that that fork met their needs.

So the situation now it's the opposite. It's basically now we're in the position of offering people more and, and, and the gravel segments at, which is kind of,

I think you hit the nail on the head. It is exactly opposite. You've got a market that is as the mentality that fully rigid is the way it should be. And now you're saying how about adding a little suspension on it?

Yeah, yeah. If you. Yeah. So you wrote maintenance, uh, pounds of extra weight compared to a carbon fork or something and to get always sexual attraction and comfort and yeah, speed. Basically you just roll faster on, on, on coarse gravel. So. So that's, uh, that's a more fun and easier proposition to have, which is a, which is cool to see a lot of fun

that. Absolutely. So did you end up redesigning the fork specific for what we call the gravel market?

So it took us awhile to like decide on, on how much give to, to have in the fork. So yeah, we ended up with these, uh, 13 millimeters of travel, so, so I mean, and going down from the 60 millimeters that we had on our multiply ports and it was, it took a while to come to that conclusion because when, when you ride on gravel for it, you don't really notice anything, anything happening anymore. So that's a difference between the thirtY, under 30. You don't feel it moving and, and, and, and at first you might think like, well this is, this isn't doing anything for me, it's not until you go and compare it to our richard back then men are like wow, this is a world of a difference. So that was what we were after with a gravel floor to make it simple enough so it wouldn't bother you, but still that you would feel a massive difference to, to rigid fork. So we, we're trying to maintain or the benefits of, of our rigid setup, but, but just giving you more benefits as opposed to when you have like a traditional suspension for it, then you're inevitably always been. You inevitably have to accept a lot of downsides. So we want to like get the pastels basically that was the idea.

So a couple of questions come to mind for me. When You bring the fork on the road on a gravel bikes, you're on a more mixed terrain where you've got road and off road sections. How does it feel? And you know, where's the performance lag? Which presumably there's some In there when you hit the roads.

When you're on tarmac or our smooth, smooth roads, obviously there is less need for it obviously. Uh, then it just acts like a lifesaver when he, when you hit that pothole maybe, or if you're, if you're writing on poor time like, like we have here in Iceland than it does a lot for you because it can take a that high-frequency bush. It can really effectively remove that from you. And not in the way that some like free manufacturers talk about that the leadership of the frame or something removes something with a black box technology. It actually can ride next to one writing a lot of work on tarmac and you can see it, It's like a, it's like a bee bursting, like I'll be there, the blades, but then again, obviously, like you say, when it becomes smaller and smaller and smaller, you have less and less need for the fork. So eventually, I mean you will always have downsides of the additional part of width, uh, and it's going to be less arrow as well than your, than your typical role. but obviously, uh, but we, uh, in our design we try to minimize those downsides. So, so unless you are like aiming for port placements in enrolled racist, uh, it should absolutely not bother you are when you use that a road bike. Yeah. That's the intention.

That makes sense. So let's talk about the performance benefits when we get off road.

Yeah. So off wrote some purists purists, they, they like to save him that he can just run a wider tire, deflated a bit and then you get the same performance or something. But the key here is that you can actually, you can run a, a higher pressure or turn it around you, you can only drop the pressure so far and before you mess things up before it's just too much rolling resistance and too much risk of, uh, of, of, of a puncture or hitting the rim or snake bites on that if you have a tube. So we can only take that comfort so far when the hits become slightly bigger, you benefit a lot from having the extra 30 millimeters from the fork. This was a. So it was pretty cool. I just came back from the dirty cancer. Uh, so, uh, so four of us here from the office in Iceland, we flew over to Kansas and did the race. oh yeah. It was awesome to do it. Don't I? Have you. Have you done it?

I haven't. I've read about it and we've had a number of guests on the podcast who have raised there and it looks amazing and I know the community out there. It's definitely on my list of things to do.

Yeah. I'm in a like all writers should have it done on their liSt. I think it's really cool. You met then and nicely organized as well. So it is, it's, yeah, everything Fun around it and everything. caught cold atmosphere. But yeah, I was saying yeah, it was really cool to see in the race there the difference, the fort made sense. I was amazed myself because usually back here I'm just riding by myself or with the guys from the office around the city here. Uh, but like on the center and then like next to a rigid gravel bikes, like similar bikes, seminar tires and everything, but just not with the fork and not with our long geometry either. I wasn't literally flying past people maced. I was just like, get out of my way and I'm not the fastest center usually. Um, um, yeah. but, but yeah, that was a little different story now.

Yeah. Have yoU, have you, I know you guys are engaged with a number of athletes, you probably have done dirty cans on multiple occasions. Have you talked to them specifically about their experiences without the dao fork and with the left fork and how they felt afterwards?

I don't recall such a, so it's, it's not, it's usually not me, the that's like talking to all the love writers out there and like I'm not the contact person for that. I'm I to stick within r and d that obviously I talked to a lot case every now and then and and basically what we look at, what the media has said about this is that they know what we heard from yet basically or everyone that has reviewed our bike or for a cause that they say that it's gonna be hard to go back to richard for having been on this for it just, I mean reality, reality is harsh and if you don't tell the fork in between you and reality, it's, it's, it's rough roll by.

Yeah. Now I got to imagine on a long event like dirty cancer, that having that suspension upfront just really helps the fatigue factor.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Yeah. And I, I mean I imagine that's going to be an important segment for the product. Someone who really is focused on that type of racing or somebody who spends a lot of time off road versus mixed terrain I think is going to be an ideal for you.

I totally agree. And it was a, it was really, honestly, I was really glad to see if the cancer was fulfilling to see how many people were writing are forms that I was. I was amazed. I mean I know, I mean we sell, these forks are like every month they go out all these forks, but, but it's just to see them see all these writers on our product that we, that we cooked up in a, in a garage, in reykjavik, in Iceland like eight years ago or whatever it was six years ago. It's just, it was amazing. So I was estimating like, around where I was riding the race, it was like between one out of 10 or one out of 20 riders were on, uh, on our form, which was, yeah, five to 10 percent. Yeah. That must have been an amazing feeling.

I mean, I mean even if I mean, you, even if it will all stop here and I'll just go the same conveyor belts for full processing machines or whatever, I will be a pretty fulfilled having, having just seen this was awesome. So then last year you guys also made a huge leap in introducing your own bikes and frame sets. Yeah. Yeah. There was a, there was actually that wasn't the, that was not plant a, like a, like it only kima basically this idea like one year earlier, uh, this wasn't enough, the original plan, but it just turned out to be the next logical step for us as we had been getting. YeS. So good reviews on the fork. Uh, uh, but still always having the battle of, of, you know, we had to make a fork that, that was compatible with so many different frames. So many different standards, uh, and so many different geometries because, uh, the, uh, the frame geometry is really important, uh, like the frame geometry we have combined with the function of the four.

If you do it, it makes a big difference. You need to have the right geometry subtle. So it was kind of frustrating not being able to control the whole picture. Uh, so, and we have been writing all the major gravel bags. Basically we have them ourselves or have written them a fake shells or whatever. So we had a pretty clear Idea for, for, for. Yeah, what we thought would be the perfect gravel bike and we'll have persuaded that this bag, this didn't exist already. So yeah. So we've kind of decided to go for it. And, and, and it was like, in retrospect it was pretty obvious because, I mean, we, we already had these set up for it. Basically we have been designing and making the forbes for several years and, and uh, the, the carbon like design that goes into a four piece is way more complex than that.

Then what we needed for the frame. So it was easy in comparison I would say, because we have already done all the groundwork. So what were you seeing in the market with the existing frames that wasn't there? And so what it, what the true grit, where is it, where will it differ from to a gravel bike that might've been around a couple of years back? Yeah. So a lot of it you will just some simple things. Basically a had angle. a had angle is a crucial thing for a frame. I remember just a few years back, I didn't, I didn't care who had angles was just just the, just the number or number on my computer screen when I was checking out different bikes. But now I know why everyone stated something. We did extensive comparison, the research between different ad angles. We made like a, a frame, but you could adjust the head angle and the top tube length and so on the fly almost just like two minutes to adjust the head and the top two black.

And it was just so revealing to see how much nicer a gravel bike. The king in our opinion. Uh, because the answer was above opinion, you can say that bike is better than all of you down in most cases unless one of them is broken or something now, but it's uh, so to, to have the slacker head angle that we have. So it's probably around the degree, one degree, slacker that then you see you on most other gravel bikes. And this makes a huge difference. The bike becomes so much more stable nature to live with nature to live with in gravel writing because what we have seen is that, that people basically we're taking road bikes, uh, and, and, and, and cramming gravel tire onto them and often even boasting about maintaining a road bike geometry, uh, which isn't the way to go about it, we think because on a gravel bike in need, the more stable geometry, uh, on, on fast.

So you don't want to have the front tire underneath, you want to have it a little bit in front of you. Anyone could have more trail on your bike. So this had uncle, uh, and to combine it with a long tube, this is the key to how our bike behaves that are a lot of details obviously, but this is the key and when we combine a slack and google, which gifts stapled handling a combined it with a long top tube, the long top, your gifts it back the agility that you lose out on when, when you give it us like animal because a long top tube means that you fit the short stem on your bike. I mean, people know all this from mountain bikes already, so we're not making, not discovering anything new here. Just stuff you're just applying. Yeah. What we already know from mountain bikes to road bikes basically.

Interesting. I mean it, it sounds like you had a very specific customer and style of writing in mind and focused on creating what you thought was the perfect bike for that rider.

Yeah. So we wanted to, uh, also to us too often we think fast bikes are fast bikes, meaning yeah, the rider has some aggressive fit on first folks that are mostly what distinguishes them. Usually those bikes, they have sketchy handling, basically our steve had ankles and if you'll almost nervous, so we wanted to give the unique combination of a staple chassis underneath you are fast writing position for the writer so you can go into your like aggressive role position in a bag. So it's intended to be a fast bike, a bee wanted to get the stability that that is usually only being a being applied to touring bikes or or, or, or similar. So why not have both was there was the fundamental thinking we have the bike.

Yeah. I think it's really interesting as new riders come into the sport there's a philosophy you have to have a personal philosophy about what your intention is and the industry including you guys is trying to discover how to fit riders with that intention and I think you guys have done a great job of defining an archetype of this intention and creating a complete package around it.

Yeah, I mean like, like you were saying earlier is gravel bikes. It's such a wide segments. It's almost becoming a problem now. I think you, you, you can have like gravel bike a and grow up. I be in that they can be so different. They can be like a, like a mountain bike and a road bike almost.

Yeah, I mean just down to tire selection. Even you can create these just radically different bikes on the same frame.

Yeah, that's a cool. So that makes it so interesting.

It really does and I think it makes it super interesting when you think about going to tackle new events like Dirty Kanza, you go out there, you need to think about a certain type of terrain and a certain type of durability and a certain type of fatigue versus what you might think of in Vermont or an icelander In California. And I think that's a very invigorating part of the sport for a lot of people, myself included. I like going out there and trying new things. It reminds me of those early days of mountain biking you are describing where you just didn't know. You didn't know if you had the right equipment, you had no Idea what the terrain was going to hold and

yes. You know what nobody knows that's the so I mean we're, we're, we're all lost. I mean the guy that it keeps changing, I mean competition, so they bury and your fitness batteries and everything, so the theft of your bike, you need to change that and you need to go with these tires for this race and those tires for that race. So it's. Yeah, it's, it's fun. It's not like a traditional road bike where it's mostly just, yeah, you have one set up and you just write it.

Yeah, exactly. Well I think that's why we're all here and that's why the listeners are listening and this has been a great conversation. I appreciate all the time. If people want to learn more about the fork and about the frames, where should they find you? Where's a good place to get information?

Yeah. Pro. YeAh. Google love, love work or love. True grit. The name of our name of our bike off to. Great. I will look that up. Uh, then again, I'm probably a bunch of reviews and stuff. I mean I can also point you to our own website. It's a biased media though.

I'll put all the links in the podcast notes that people will know how to find you. You do have some very interesting videos on the website that are just informative. I'm in greater detail, you know, per this conversation about how, what your philosophy was, how the fork works, what are the different considerations. So again, thanks so much for the time. It's been great to get to know you guys a little bit better and I look forward to seeing more of your products out on the road.

Thank you so much. And um, I'm still awaiting on your invitation to California.

Today everyone, I'm excited to bring Benedikt from Lauf to the podcast to learn more about the interesting forks and bikes that these guys have been making since 2010. Benedikt. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Glad to be here.

You're in Iceland today, so this is an international conversation!

Yeah it is kind of shitty over here now.

I know we've got to get you over here to Marin county. We've got a little bit of sunshine today and a lot of trails I'd love to explore with your product.

Yeah, that will be nice. So we're having the worst summer since the beginning of recording whether in Iceland. Wow. So the worst May being followed up with the worst June of all time.

So does that mean a lot of wet weather?

Mostly it means rain and like a yes, sub 10 degrees Celsius temperatures like Fahrenheit or so.

Well we definitely got to get you out to California then. I always like to start off by learning a little bit more about you as a cyclist and kind of what drove you to discover off road riding and gravel riding later.

I've always been into bikes, obviously a lifelong passion. And back here in Iceland it was. So I'm, what am I, 33 now, years old. So when I was growing up it was kind of in the middle of the mountain bike boom, where the, when the first suspension forks were hitting the market, uh, the first, uh, workshops for two, we're like really gaining momentum in the market back then. Nobody wrote anything about the mountain biking. I stamps there were no road bikes to speak of. Maybe a, maybe somebody old cousin or something, brought one home from his days in France or whatever, but it was all about mountain bikes. And, and you know, I'm in, back then mountain bikes were, yep. Close to what we know as scrambled bikes today basically. So it used to be called not the bags and that, and I enrolled them as such.

But in fact they were road bikes like we got under day. Uh, I've been writing a lot since early childhood, uh, and always been fascinated by like the same product and as a, as a small small tear that I've participated in, like some invention, uh, like contests here in Iceland, a and one a price as a 12 year old or what it was and I spent all my price money on buying a bike and then when I was complimented as that as a Christian, which happens when you're like 13 or 14 here, then I've got some presidents and then I used that money to buy a suspension for comment back. So it was a rock shot, judy t two four that dates it a little bit. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it's been all about bikes. It's funny when you look at it in retrospect. So I mean I had no idea this was coming at me.

It was never, it was never a goal in itself too to go into the biking industry, uh, because I mean there is no wash, no bike industry here in Iceland, but it Kinda just happens as a result of a lifelong passion for the topic. So yeah, I got my, got my masters in engineering, I actually did my master's in the US, so I studied in Manhattan, Columbia, did my master's there and I was always fascinated by a composites. Composites are what basically drove me into the cycling industry, so to speak. So I really wanted to initially, so back in 2007 or eight, I was studying, uh, uh, basically how to make my own carbon bike. A lot of people have, have done this and like, because it's fascinating, fascinating material. So I spent a lot of time on researching how to do all that, uh, coming to the conclusion in the end, but that it tricky to do start from level ground to make your own carbon bike.

You need to do a lot of testing and it need to have a lot of hands on experience, experience with material. So that got me thinking, where can I get a job in composites, which led me to work to a job at a which is nice landscape company, world's biggest a prosthetic maker, a worlds because high-end, prosthetic makeup and, and I worked there for awhile. The designing prosthetic feet, the carbon blades type. And that opened my eyes to so up until that point, carpooling was, yeah, like it is too, like it's still is to most designers. It is a way of making a really rich it then late structure that work in a prosthetic company. It made me realize that, that it's more than that. It's also about the fracture performance of the material, how long it can last. There's basically no fatigue in carbon.

The only fatigue in like composite products got carbon frames for example. It is the fatigue between the fibers. So when the epoxy resin between the fibers that get deteriorates over time, uh, but like the fibers themselves, they left forever. And this is amazing stuff. So, so realizing and seeing just with your bare eyes, how much flex and performance and, and, and load carrying capacity you can get out of our composite leaf spring. It's just ridiculous at which led me to think how can I use this to make, to improve your bicycle basically in the beginning and, and that question like fundamentally was not about just the actual performance, it was about how to use flex but still controlling the movement of the, of the path of the suspended. We'll uh, because as you know, when you have a suspended or not suspended, but like for gaming forks, say that's a really old steel like curved forks.

You can only take that concept so far if you make them like, like really, really thin and make them stretch far to the front and they become a way to noodley it's just you have no lateral support or front the back support and the structure. So that was like the key problem I was trying to address how to tie things together to control the flex basically. And that's. Yeah, love fork is the result of that. And were you able to prototype that locally and Iceland? Yeah. Uh, wish this a your limit. Then I could show you a short your first prototype, but it was crazy looking prototype made out of aluminum. You profile a beams, uh, in a way like what was it, 15 pounds or so, just the for a thing. Uh, but, but obviously it wasn't, it was not about achieving low weight at that point was just about proving that the suspension would be guided properly and then it will behave normally, so to speak and how we respond to a break forces and stuff like that.

So we did a series of these aluminum prototypes or first bringing them to the right, like stale, you mentioned live the right, the of suspension and, and uh, yeah, I think the break and enter into the concept and all that just to see if it worked. Which, yeah. Which it turned out to do. It works well, but then yeah, back then, yeah, we, we, we celebrated that achievement like we had won the World Cup or something. Uh, what we didn't realize then is that there was just like a fraction of the, of the task I had to make something that works and now as a matter of producing it and marketing it and finding the right application for it, etc. Etc. Etc. And that has been. Yeah. So, so we made these first prototypes back in 2011, late 2011. So ever since then we've been working on, on bringing it to the market and yeah more and more basically.

Yeah, as I mentioned to you, I had seen allow for probably back in 2012, 2013 here in San Francisco and I was intrigued by it. Uh, the riding around here, a lot of fire roads, stuff that you don't really need a lot of beefy suspension for. So on a hardtail twenty niner, which is where I saw the fork, it just made a ton of sense and for someone like myself who doesn't go uphill that quickly, having the weight weight advantages was really intriguing for me and I'd, I'd never seen anything like it. And I know the gentleman who wrote it, I thought a lot about hiS equipment, uh, so I remained intrigued by it never pulled the trigger on the mountain bike side, but as I got into the gravel market and sell your products kind of evolved into that field as well. The same light bulbs went off. So I'm curious to hear your perspective about when you started to see the influence of the gravel market and you started to see the application of your fork there.

So it's a, it's a fun question because in a way it has always been above rental bikes for us. It just weren't called rebel bikes, uh, back in the days. Uh, so, uh, and this was, this was really tricky with the mountain bike for because what we had done was that I'm still have, although we have, we've updated the mountain bike fork a substantially since way back in 2012. So that version is way improved now in the latest version. but at some of the story back then, yeah, we had basically had the gravel fork for mountain bikes are song people saw it. And, and, and this was a common misconception in the us basically, that this was a fork, a good on, on a mountain bike and then to like granola nasty, like, yeah, aggressive cross country riding or all month and writing a, but they've never been above that, that they've been more about a different iceland's, like you said in the presentation.

So back here, like the benchmark race, we have a, it's called the blue lagoon chance and it's a, it's a cross country, like an old style cross country race. Uh, and it's not super technical, but it has, but it has like a coarse surfaces, coarse gravel roads. Uh, so that is the type of writing that the four position initially made for basically turning mountain bikes into fast gravel bikes. Uh, but, but the problem we had there was that it was a, it was a tricky thing to explain because we were, in a way you could say that we were trying to invent rebel bikes.

Yeah, you absolutely were. I mean, I think if you think about the trends in mountain biking in that era, you were actually going the wrong direction. People were going greater and greater travel, talking about different categories like trail bikes and enduro bikes and here you addressing a problem that uh, you know, most people weren't perceiving for mountain bikes specifically.

Exactly. So we were kind of when people were asking for more, we were giving them less at, which was a kind of weird, weird situation. And often, I mean, we, we, we've, we've always thought that we were doing the right thing, but it wasn't like at the, at the right time and it didn't have the right market fits back man, like 12, 13, 14. I often visited some, some trail centers in the us where I wrote everything easily on my heart with allow fork and it was super nice, uh, and overtaking guys on, on, on, on, on mass. Massive or mountain bikes are on like buffed single tracks. Uh, so people are, yeah, they often have. Yeah. Two big bikes. The bikes are. But we do a big problem for people. Right. But I mean, but, but if people want to want to get those folks, then it's up to them. I mean, not saying that it's worse, but it, but it's, yeah,

yeah, it probably would have continued to be an uphill struggle to convince people that that fork met their needs.

So the situation now it's the opposite. It's basically now we're in the position of offering people more and, and, and the gravel segments at, which is kind of,

I think you hit the nail on the head. It is exactly opposite. You've got a market that is as the mentality that fully rigid is the way it should be. And now you're saying how about adding a little suspension on it?

Yeah, yeah. If you. Yeah. So you wrote maintenance, uh, pounds of extra weight compared to a carbon fork or something and to get always sexual attraction and comfort and yeah, speed. Basically you just roll faster on, on, on coarse gravel. So. So that's, uh, that's a more fun and easier proposition to have, which is a, which is cool to see a lot of fun

that. Absolutely. So did you end up redesigning the fork specific for what we call the gravel market?

So it took us awhile to like decide on, on how much give to, to have in the fork. So yeah, we ended up with these, uh, 13 millimeters of travel, so, so I mean, and going down from the 60 millimeters that we had on our multiply ports and it was, it took a while to come to that conclusion because when, when you ride on gravel for it, you don't really notice anything, anything happening anymore. So that's a difference between the thirtY, under 30. You don't feel it moving and, and, and, and at first you might think like, well this is, this isn't doing anything for me, it's not until you go and compare it to our richard back then men are like wow, this is a world of a difference. So that was what we were after with a gravel floor to make it simple enough so it wouldn't bother you, but still that you would feel a massive difference to, to rigid fork. So we, we're trying to maintain or the benefits of, of our rigid setup, but, but just giving you more benefits as opposed to when you have like a traditional suspension for it, then you're inevitably always been. You inevitably have to accept a lot of downsides. So we want to like get the pastels basically that was the idea.

So a couple of questions come to mind for me. When You bring the fork on the road on a gravel bikes, you're on a more mixed terrain where you've got road and off road sections. How does it feel? And you know, where's the performance lag? Which presumably there's some In there when you hit the roads.

When you're on tarmac or our smooth, smooth roads, obviously there is less need for it obviously. Uh, then it just acts like a lifesaver when he, when you hit that pothole maybe, or if you're, if you're writing on poor time like, like we have here in Iceland than it does a lot for you because it can take a that high-frequency bush. It can really effectively remove that from you. And not in the way that some like free manufacturers talk about that the leadership of the frame or something removes something with a black box technology. It actually can ride next to one writing a lot of work on tarmac and you can see it, It's like a, it's like a bee bursting, like I'll be there, the blades, but then again, obviously, like you say, when it becomes smaller and smaller and smaller, you have less and less need for the fork. So eventually, I mean you will always have downsides of the additional part of width, uh, and it's going to be less arrow as well than your, than your typical role. but obviously, uh, but we, uh, in our design we try to minimize those downsides. So, so unless you are like aiming for port placements in enrolled racist, uh, it should absolutely not bother you are when you use that a road bike. Yeah. That's the intention.

That makes sense. So let's talk about the performance benefits when we get off road.

Yeah. So off wrote some purists purists, they, they like to save him that he can just run a wider tire, deflated a bit and then you get the same performance or something. But the key here is that you can actually, you can run a, a higher pressure or turn it around you, you can only drop the pressure so far and before you mess things up before it's just too much rolling resistance and too much risk of, uh, of, of, of a puncture or hitting the rim or snake bites on that if you have a tube. So we can only take that comfort so far when the hits become slightly bigger, you benefit a lot from having the extra 30 millimeters from the fork. This was a. So it was pretty cool. I just came back from the dirty cancer. Uh, so, uh, so four of us here from the office in Iceland, we flew over to Kansas and did the race. oh yeah. It was awesome to do it. Don't I? Have you. Have you done it?

I haven't. I've read about it and we've had a number of guests on the podcast who have raised there and it looks amazing and I know the community out there. It's definitely on my list of things to do.

Yeah. I'm in a like all writers should have it done on their liSt. I think it's really cool. You met then and nicely organized as well. So it is, it's, yeah, everything Fun around it and everything. caught cold atmosphere. But yeah, I was saying yeah, it was really cool to see in the race there the difference, the fort made sense. I was amazed myself because usually back here I'm just riding by myself or with the guys from the office around the city here. Uh, but like on the center and then like next to a rigid gravel bikes, like similar bikes, seminar tires and everything, but just not with the fork and not with our long geometry either. I wasn't literally flying past people maced. I was just like, get out of my way and I'm not the fastest center usually. Um, um, yeah. but, but yeah, that was a little different story now.

Yeah. Have yoU, have you, I know you guys are engaged with a number of athletes, you probably have done dirty cans on multiple occasions. Have you talked to them specifically about their experiences without the dao fork and with the left fork and how they felt afterwards?

I don't recall such a, so it's, it's not, it's usually not me, the that's like talking to all the love writers out there and like I'm not the contact person for that. I'm I to stick within r and d that obviously I talked to a lot case every now and then and and basically what we look at, what the media has said about this is that they know what we heard from yet basically or everyone that has reviewed our bike or for a cause that they say that it's gonna be hard to go back to richard for having been on this for it just, I mean reality, reality is harsh and if you don't tell the fork in between you and reality, it's, it's, it's rough roll by.

Yeah. Now I got to imagine on a long event like dirty cancer, that having that suspension upfront just really helps the fatigue factor.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Yeah. And I, I mean I imagine that's going to be an important segment for the product. Someone who really is focused on that type of racing or somebody who spends a lot of time off road versus mixed terrain I think is going to be an ideal for you.

I totally agree. And it was a, it was really, honestly, I was really glad to see if the cancer was fulfilling to see how many people were writing are forms that I was. I was amazed. I mean I know, I mean we sell, these forks are like every month they go out all these forks, but, but it's just to see them see all these writers on our product that we, that we cooked up in a, in a garage, in reykjavik, in Iceland like eight years ago or whatever it was six years ago. It's just, it was amazing. So I was estimating like, around where I was riding the race, it was like between one out of 10 or one out of 20 riders were on, uh, on our form, which was, yeah, five to 10 percent. Yeah. That must have been an amazing feeling.

I mean, I mean even if I mean, you, even if it will all stop here and I'll just go the same conveyor belts for full processing machines or whatever, I will be a pretty fulfilled having, having just seen this was awesome. So then last year you guys also made a huge leap in introducing your own bikes and frame sets. Yeah. Yeah. There was a, there was actually that wasn't the, that was not plant a, like a, like it only kima basically this idea like one year earlier, uh, this wasn't enough, the original plan, but it just turned out to be the next logical step for us as we had been getting. YeS. So good reviews on the fork. Uh, uh, but still always having the battle of, of, you know, we had to make a fork that, that was compatible with so many different frames. So many different standards, uh, and so many different geometries because, uh, the, uh, the frame geometry is really important, uh, like the frame geometry we have combined with the function of the four.

If you do it, it makes a big difference. You need to have the right geometry subtle. So it was kind of frustrating not being able to control the whole picture. Uh, so, and we have been writing all the major gravel bags. Basically we have them ourselves or have written them a fake shells or whatever. So we had a pretty clear Idea for, for, for. Yeah, what we thought would be the perfect gravel bike and we'll have persuaded that this bag, this didn't exist already. So yeah. So we've kind of decided to go for it. And, and, and it was like, in retrospect it was pretty obvious because, I mean, we, we already had these set up for it. Basically we have been designing and making the forbes for several years and, and uh, the, the carbon like design that goes into a four piece is way more complex than that.

Then what we needed for the frame. So it was easy in comparison I would say, because we have already done all the groundwork. So what were you seeing in the market with the existing frames that wasn't there? And so what it, what the true grit, where is it, where will it differ from to a gravel bike that might've been around a couple of years back? Yeah. So a lot of it you will just some simple things. Basically a had angle. a had angle is a crucial thing for a frame. I remember just a few years back, I didn't, I didn't care who had angles was just just the, just the number or number on my computer screen when I was checking out different bikes. But now I know why everyone stated something. We did extensive comparison, the research between different ad angles. We made like a, a frame, but you could adjust the head angle and the top tube length and so on the fly almost just like two minutes to adjust the head and the top two black.

And it was just so revealing to see how much nicer a gravel bike. The king in our opinion. Uh, because the answer was above opinion, you can say that bike is better than all of you down in most cases unless one of them is broken or something now, but it's uh, so to, to have the slacker head angle that we have. So it's probably around the degree, one degree, slacker that then you see you on most other gravel bikes. And this makes a huge difference. The bike becomes so much more stable nature to live with nature to live with in gravel writing because what we have seen is that, that people basically we're taking road bikes, uh, and, and, and, and cramming gravel tire onto them and often even boasting about maintaining a road bike geometry, uh, which isn't the way to go about it, we think because on a gravel bike in need, the more stable geometry, uh, on, on fast.

So you don't want to have the front tire underneath, you want to have it a little bit in front of you. Anyone could have more trail on your bike. So this had uncle, uh, and to combine it with a long tube, this is the key to how our bike behaves that are a lot of details obviously, but this is the key and when we combine a slack and google, which gifts stapled handling a combined it with a long top tube, the long top, your gifts it back the agility that you lose out on when, when you give it us like animal because a long top tube means that you fit the short stem on your bike. I mean, people know all this from mountain bikes already, so we're not making, not discovering anything new here. Just stuff you're just applying. Yeah. What we already know from mountain bikes to road bikes basically.

Interesting. I mean it, it sounds like you had a very specific customer and style of writing in mind and focused on creating what you thought was the perfect bike for that rider.

Yeah. So we wanted to, uh, also to us too often we think fast bikes are fast bikes, meaning yeah, the rider has some aggressive fit on first folks that are mostly what distinguishes them. Usually those bikes, they have sketchy handling, basically our steve had ankles and if you'll almost nervous, so we wanted to give the unique combination of a staple chassis underneath you are fast writing position for the writer so you can go into your like aggressive role position in a bag. So it's intended to be a fast bike, a bee wanted to get the stability that that is usually only being a being applied to touring bikes or or, or, or similar. So why not have both was there was the fundamental thinking we have the bike.

Yeah. I think it's really interesting as new riders come into the sport there's a philosophy you have to have a personal philosophy about what your intention is and the industry including you guys is trying to discover how to fit riders with that intention and I think you guys have done a great job of defining an archetype of this intention and creating a complete package around it.

Yeah, I mean like, like you were saying earlier is gravel bikes. It's such a wide segments. It's almost becoming a problem now. I think you, you, you can have like gravel bike a and grow up. I be in that they can be so different. They can be like a, like a mountain bike and a road bike almost.

Yeah, I mean just down to tire selection. Even you can create these just radically different bikes on the same frame.

Yeah, that's a cool. So that makes it so interesting.

It really does and I think it makes it super interesting when you think about going to tackle new events like Dirty Kanza, you go out there, you need to think about a certain type of terrain and a certain type of durability and a certain type of fatigue versus what you might think of in Vermont or an icelander In California. And I think that's a very invigorating part of the sport for a lot of people, myself included. I like going out there and trying new things. It reminds me of those early days of mountain biking you are describing where you just didn't know. You didn't know if you had the right equipment, you had no Idea what the terrain was going to hold and

yes. You know what nobody knows that's the so I mean we're, we're, we're all lost. I mean the guy that it keeps changing, I mean competition, so they bury and your fitness batteries and everything, so the theft of your bike, you need to change that and you need to go with these tires for this race and those tires for that race. So it's. Yeah, it's, it's fun. It's not like a traditional road bike where it's mostly just, yeah, you have one set up and you just write it.

Yeah, exactly. Well I think that's why we're all here and that's why the listeners are listening and this has been a great conversation. I appreciate all the time. If people want to learn more about the fork and about the frames, where should they find you? Where's a good place to get information?

Yeah. Pro. YeAh. Google love, love work or love. True grit. The name of our name of our bike off to. Great. I will look that up. Uh, then again, I'm probably a bunch of reviews and stuff. I mean I can also point you to our own website. It's a biased media though.

I'll put all the links in the podcast notes that people will know how to find you. You do have some very interesting videos on the website that are just informative. I'm in greater detail, you know, per this conversation about how, what your philosophy was, how the fork works, what are the different considerations. So again, thanks so much for the time. It's been great to get to know you guys a little bit better and I look forward to seeing more of your products out on the road.

Thank you so much. And um, I'm still awaiting on your invitation to California.

You got it. Anytime. Thanks Benedikt. Thank you.

]]>33:11cleanBenedikt Skulason from Lauf Cycling talks about the origin of the Lauf fork and ultimately the design of the True Grit gravel bike. fullRandall Jacobs - THESIS BikeRandall Jacobs - THESIS BikeMon, 25 Jun 2018 03:31:23 +0000Randall Jacobs, Co-Founder of THESIS Bike drops in to talk about the development process and vision for the OB1 bicycle.

CRAIG: All right. Hello everyone. Today we've got Randall Jacobs from THESIS Bike here, live in person. We're going to talk to him about the THESIS Bike Company and what his inspiration was. We actually just got back from a sample ride here in Marin county riding the new OB1 bike and I'm really excited to introduce everybody to Randall. So thanks for joining us.

RANDALL: Thanks for having me.

CRAIG: I always like to start by finding out a little bit about your background as a rider. Did you start more on the mountain bike side or on the road side?

RANDALL: So I started racing mountain bikes as an undergraduate. I was playing football and broke my foot. Cycling was the first thing I could do and I took to the bicycle on the mountain bike side and did the collegiate series, found that I was reasonably good at it and stuck with it. It's become a real lifestyle ever since.

CRAIG: And did that lead you into other elements of the sport?

RANDALL: I went on to move overseas for a period and rode on and off. When I was 25, I had a life event where my father became sick. I was looking at where he was. He had a brain tumor at the time, so pretty bad prognosis. I said, what are the things I'd like to have accomplished in his position? Being a pro athlete was one of those things. So I started training full time. I was lucky to win a couple of national championships as an amateur shortly after he passed and then spent the subsequent couple of years living out of my Honda Element traveling around the country with a fleet of bicycles that was worth probably 5X what the car was worth.

CRAIG: So you're racing on the national mountain bike scene at that point?

RANDALL: Yeah. I was, you could say, pack fodder on the US Cup circuit, and then I'd have a few good results in the local circuits.

CRAIG: What a great journey. Spending that much time doing it. I think it's something that a lot of people aspire to just following their dreams of bike racing and going out there and doing it and it's certainly not without its sacrifices.

RANDALL: It's certainly is. I was fortunate in my case in that I had started a career in international trade and supply chain architecture where I could work remotely anywhere in the world. So in that regard it didn't cost too much, but you definitely put certain other things on hold being on the road all the time.

CRAIG: So when you hung up your racing cleats, what was next for you professionally?

RANDALL: From there I started a product development company where we were working with the same set of Chinese manufacturers that I had cultivated during my period running product and market development for the Chinese trading and manufacturing company. I then sold that company to one of our partners and went to work for Specialized in 2013. At Specialized, the Diverge project was in its early days. I actually ended up naming that bike and was the product developer for the project, so doing all the bike builds and negotiating all the deals with the vendors and so on, and coordinating the product and supply chain sides.

CRAIG: So you were helping sort of spec out the supply chain and the specifications for the original Diverge bike while you were there?

RANDALL: Correct. And doing a lot of the field testing and component compatibility testing to make sure everything was fully dialed, which is where you see my obsessive attention to detail come in.

CRAIG: The Diverge bike, it was really one of the first production, quote unquote gravel bikes to hit the market from a big manufacturers that right?

RANDALL: For sure. The first bike that was called a gravel bike. I mean, there had been people riding such bikes for quite some time. When that bike came out, it was the early days of drop bar disc brakes, which really opened up a lot not just for braking power and modulation, but also for tire clearance. That was a key enabling technology that allows you to have the sort of bikes we have today, the other one being tubeless tires. And in today's world, tubeless tires with really wide rims allows you to have a bicycle, a drop bar bike, that is fast like a road bike on the road and as capable or more so than what a mountain bike would have been not too long ago.

CRAIG: Gotcha. So the Diverge, was it the end all be all? Was it everything you wanted to make in a gravel bike?

RANDALL: No. Of course, there are constraints on what we were able to do at that time for a variety of reasons. When you work for a big company, there's always going to be product decisions that are more due to a cost structure or needing to support a certain margin and marketing story. So with the OB1 it was really something I had been incubating for quite some time and it's my opportunity to take an unfettered approach to product from the ground up. I've had to compromise on nothing: not tire clearance, not stick-on or bolt-on magic elastomers attached to the frame, nothing. I just went ground up with pure evidenced-based curation of the components and the setup.

CRAIG: Interesting. So we're here to talk about your new company that you cofounded, THESIS Bike, and you just referenced your first model, the OB1. Some of the motivation has already come out in the conversation about why you wanted to start this company, but why now? What are the trends you're seeing? You're doing some unique stuff at THESIS that we'll get into as far as the bike itself and the business model, but why now and why are you guys the people to do it?

RANDALL: If you look at what we're doing, the primary innovation here is this business model. But the product itself is really cool and one I've been thinking about for awhile, so let's start with the product itself. So you saw bikes like the Open UP come online, which really brought an almost monster cross capability in a form factor that is more akin to an endurance road bike that's slacked out a little bit.

We wanted to go a step further. So if you look, we don't do a frame set. We do a complete bike for the cost of a frameset from the companies were competing with, and that's enabled by the business model innovation.

On the product side of things, [we have] a flat top handle bar with a shallow drop and a 10 degree flare so you’re narrow and relatively aero on the hoods, but in the drops you have that additional control which has benefits not just in gravel but also when you're just doing a road descent. You just had that much more leverage. Or even like in a sprint. You see this on ENVE’s road handle bars. They have a model that has a four degree flair, a little subtle thing. And I think you'll see flare bars start to catch on across disciplines, even with roadies or at least the more progressive roadies who aren't so traditional in their equipment choices.

On the wheels, we do 650B and 700C wheel pack package options. In our case both wheel packages use a high end carbon rim. With the 650B we go really wide, 27.3 internal width, so 33.3 external. And what that does is it takes your tire, like the WTB Byway we have as standard, and it brings it out from 47 to almost 50 millimeters and changes the profile such that the side knobs engage a bit sooner and you can drop the pressure down and not have the tire flopping around. So I'll ride out to the trail chasing down roadies at 45 psi and then I'll drop it down to 30 and the rear in 27 in the front and ride it like a full on cross country bike. And I'm passing people on dualies. So that's another kind of small detail along with the flare bar.

The other thing is the dropper post, which you experienced today, which really transforms the bike. Anyone who's coming from the mountain scene knows that you'd probably rather give up a couple inches of suspension rather than your dropper. On the gravel bike gets that much more game changing because you're starting with no suspension.

CRAIG: It was certainly an interesting moment for me. Randall generously let me take the dropper post on all the descents today. So I had a good time doing that and it was interesting because I've obviously I've ridden the dropper posts on my mountain bike quite regularly for the last half dozen years or so. And I was quite familiar with the benefits to that with the gravel bike. It was interesting creating that sort of pocket of space underneath me because I simply wasn't familiar with it ever doing that on a drop bar bike. And I definitely appreciated the tight integration with the lever so that on the SRAM shifter, Randall has hacked it so that it controls the dropper post for you. So instead of having a front chain ring, a shifter, I can shift the dropper posts down right from the handlebars.

RANDALL: Yeah. And that's a pretty simple hack that we will be documenting with a video real soon. But essentially with SRAM’s modern hydraulic front shifters, there's a one minute hack that's fully reversible to remove the ratchet mechanism and allow that shift lever to swing freely and thus actuate the dropper post, which is really slick. I use it more than I ever used the front derailleur.

CRAIG: So that was interesting. As most people who listened to his podcast know, I tend to ride my gravel bike on more mountain biking style terrain than the kind of flow and fire roads that are often known in other parts of the country for gravel. So for me, this is something I've been thinking about for awhile, checking out a dropper post. So it was a lot of fun. And I definitely will say that if you're on the type of steep terrain that sort of characterizes the terrain in Marin County, it's definitely a value add. And there's a small weight penalty but not a dramatic weight penalty given that sort of benefits of speed going down.

RANDALL: Yeah. There is this common misconception I'll describe where you pick up a bike and you say, “Oh, that's really light. It must be fast”. But really there's a lot of ways in which you can make a bike heavier and faster. So as an example, with a dropper post, you're able to descend that much faster, not just on the super steep terrain that we were riding today, but even on less steep but really fast terrain with loose sweepers where you don't drop it all the way down. You drop it down just enough so that you have a little bit more control and you can shift your weight back and so on, and you go through with more confidence. The other thing is you can brake that much harder. So you're braking vastly more with the rear brake versus the front brake. And you can break with both of them in a “holy crap” sort of situation and have more traction and not be ready to go over the handlebars like you would be if you were sitting on top of a fully extended post.

CRAIG: Yeah, I think it's one of those things that we will definitely start to see more and more of. I think there is a somewhat of a sentiment in gravel to be respectful of our road brethren and then the changes maybe are slower to be adopted for more aesthetic reasons than anything else, but I can definitely vouch for the, the sort of performance benefits of the dropper post from what I've evidenced today in today's short ride. I do want to talk about a little bit more about the frame set too. It's a carbon frame set, correct?

RANDALL” Yup. Full carbon frame set.

CRAIG: And you've got a lot of mounts spec’ed down there, which I think is interesting. So let's talk about the mounts and some of the other things that make this bike essentially a quiver killer. Something that you can replace your road bike. And many other bikes in your garage.

RANDALL: The frameset [features] a full carbon frame and fork. I'm using the same Toray carbon fiber that everybody else uses. In our case it's T700 to T800 other people give it some fancy acronym for the same thing. It's all mostly coming from the same place.

We've done a few things that are common and few things that are unique. So on the common side, we have a full suite of bosses: cage mounts inside the frame, third cage on the down tube, a bento up top. But we've [added] to the fork blades more bottle cage bosses that are also sturdy enough to handle a front rack. We have rear rack mounts as well. So you could set this up as a full touring setup and put 10 kilos or more on the front and 15 on the back, plus a frame bag, and be on your way for your next epic adventure.

Some other smaller details that I think are really important are on the fork. Steerer tube failure has always been a big concern of mine or you've seen a bunch of recalls in the industry, some of them associated with improper manufacturing but some of them associated with the clamping force of the stem actually crushing the carbon. And so if anyone in the audience has built a carbon frame of the carbon steer before they'll see that you have this expansion plug that goes in. And we looked at all of them and none that can be found on the open market did a good job of fully supporting the steerer. So we actually bonded an aluminum tube with a built in star nut into our forks, which you can then cut and shorten. And that's a safety feature. You really have no way to install it improperly because you don't install it. It's already there. And if you're traveling a lot and you're removing your stem and reinstalling it, you can over-torque it, but it's still not going to crush the carbon. Carbon is a brilliant material in tension, but it's terrible in compression. So that was another small detail where we really paid a lot of attention.

The other thing that you noticed is we decided to forego the drop stay which you see on a bike like the Open or the new Ibis Hakka. Those bikes accommodate a slightly larger tire. I think they can go up to like a 2.2. Our bicycle is optimized around a 700C x 40 or 650b x 47, which has the same radius as a 700C x 30. And that [the 700C x 30) is actually what we use on the road.

For our [650B] wheelset, we went with a wide rim that expands the tire to almost 50 millimeters. And what we found is that’s kind of the sweet spot for maintaining a road geometry, look and feel while still giving you all the capabilities of a borderline monster cross or light XC bike.

CRAIG: Gotcha. And you're offering both a single chain ring and a double chain ring. Correct?

RANDALL: Yeah. If you're considering going with the 1x, go for it. I’m all in on 1x myself. We’re offering the double because there's a lot of people who want to go that route. We can talk about pluses and minuses here. With the 1x you get the clutch so the chain’s not slapping around. It also frees up the left shift lever for the dropper, which I think, once you've experienced it, you won't want to ride without it. I think it's really a game changer as much as anything else you can do. But yeah, we'll do a 2x as well.

In both cases you have a few different gearing options so you can really dial it in. If you're not super fit and you live in a really hilly area, go with a 38 or 40 in the front. If you're super fit and live in a flatter area, go with a 46 with a 10-42 in the rear to give you plenty of high end. Same with the double. We're working on 46/30 or 48/32 options. We're just doing the compatibility testing right now before we offer it.

CRAIG: In addition to designing the frame, you've also designed the wheel set and some of the other components. Is that right?

RANDALL: Well, so this worddesigned. We started with a frame set that had all of the characteristics that we wanted. The same is true for the rims. And that's true in wheels in particular. Almost nobody is designing their own rems or if they do, they just spec a profile and they say to an engineer at the factory, please do the layup for me. So we started with a frame that met the vast majority of our criteria and then worked with the factory on over 100 different line item changes to bring it up to where we thought it needed to be. So simple things from additional chainring clearance, to adding 3K carbon reinforcement under every single boss and cut out in the frame to give it that much more strength and fray resistance, to adding fiberglass at all the interfaces with metal so you don't get galvanic corrosion. All these little granular things that you don't think about until it's a year down the road and you're trying to remove your seat post and it won't come out because it's bonded to the carbon. We did all of those things.

CRAIG: Presumably you were traveling overseas to work directly with the factory.

RANDALL: Oh yeah. Yeah. So I've spent a couple of weeks in the factories and then quite a bit of time late at night on calls. That gives us a big advantage.

I've been working in supply chain since I started working. This was back when I was 21. I'm approaching 36 now. I'm a fluent mandarin speaker, so that allows a degree of relationship and interaction that's just not possible if you're an English speaker. So I go into a factory and I don't just speak English with the boss, I am speaking Mandarin with a line worker to understand the process that they're going through as they're making that part, what are the common failure modes as they're doing that so we can then work the engineers to design around it. And this is something that's really important to me and that I enjoy doing tremendously.

CRAIG: For those of our listeners who aren't that familiar with the bike industry, how different is that process from what a major manufacturer goes through? Are you dealing with the same types of factories, the same types of materials that you would be at a Specialized or a Trek?

RANDALL: Everyone's using from the same subset of factories, using the same materials, the same manufacturing techniques. There's almost nothing new in our industry. It’s rare that you come across something new, which is why you see quite a bit of odd looking “innovation”. It's really just a way of trying to stand out in some way. So part of our thesis is that we innovate only where that innovation provides a genuine benefit to the customer. So as an example, on our wheelset, we didn't design a custom profile. We went and found one of the best manufacturers in China, who's manufacturing rims for all the big players. They had an off the shelf rim. We worked with them to modify the layup slightly to make it optimized for a gravel application. So in our case, that meant taking a mountain bike rim with a mountain bike width that gives you that tire stability on the 650B set, and lightening the layup because it doesn't need quite as much of a burly build as it would for, say, the enduro application for which it was designed.

CRAIG: Gotcha. So in addition to the sort of manufacturing processes of the bike, you're reinventing how you're going to sell to customers. Obviously selling direct is not something totally new, but for the bike industry and customers purchasing a bike, it is a relatively new experience to go direct to a smaller brand and buy online. Can you just talk a little bit about that decision and the type of relationship you want to foster with the customers and why you thought it was important to direct?

RANDALL: Sure. From a product standpoint, it allows us to offer a very granular degree of customization. When you buy a traditional bike, you're buying a complete bike. If the handlebar width isn't right, the crank length isn't right, the gearing isn't right, you're then spending money after the fact to swap that out or you're just dealing with it. And that's unfortunate given how many times that bike has been marked up and what you're paying for it.

The other thing is, our price point is $2999, and for what we offer, that is, I mean, there's nothing else that approaches that. You can buy competing frame sets that cost that much or even slightly more. The way that we're able to accomplish that is by being as close to factory direct as you can get.

And it's actually better than factory direct because when you go factory direct, first off, no factory is going to sell you one handlebar, right? So you need a certain amount of buying volume to get that pricing. Additionally, component compatibility. You'd have to deal with “how do I high spec my bike with all these components that I've curated”. You don't have the same access to information and resources that say somebody on the inside like myself is fortunate to have.

We took a model where we work directly with the same factories who are supplying all the big brands. We work with the top of the line, open components. So we have a hollow forged crank from Samox that is lighter than Rival and comes with a spindly chain ring, and it's a really stiff and bomb proof package that can take a rock strike.

That’s one example. It’s the same with our frame set, same with our wheel packages and so on. We do assembly of the wheels and bundling of certain components in China and ship those out. And then we bundle all the components from Taiwan and we ship those out from there. So you receive two boxes of components that have been validated to work really well with each other and that you've been able to customize to your particular body, your use case, and even to your style if you want to. If you had a baby blue car with little metallic flecks in the paint when you were in high school or something like that, and you want to replicate it, send us a Pantone number and for a small up-charge we’ll get you exactly the color that you want.

CRAIG: Wow. So you mentioned two boxes are going to get shipped. The bike is not assembled correctly when it arrives. That's a little bit different than some of the other direct to consumer brands who are touting [that] all you need is an allen wrench and we'll be ready to go in five minutes. Let's talk a little bit about that.

RANDALL: So there are some brands that I've heard do a pretty good job there. Canyon is one that stands out, they do a pretty good quality build is what I've heard from mechanics, but that is not the general standard. So if you talk to many who work in shops, the really good ones tend to disassemble a factory built bike and then reassemble it to make sure it's done right. It's just hard to get that attention to detail on a mass assembly line and furthermore, they're not fit to the rider. And so you're still having to do a bunch of tweaking and so on.

So going back to why we named the company THESIS, we saw a way to both have the net cost to the rider be lower and get them a product that fits them and their riding style much better. A frame up assembly at Sports Basement [a Bay Area retailer] is 280 bucks. And now you have a local mechanic who did that build to your standard, helped you tweak it and fit it and so on. Obviously a full on custom fit is going to be a little bit more money, but that's the case with all of these bikes. Nobody's bundling in a fit, and furthermore, it would cost us more to ship everything to a single facility, have it assembled poorly or not as well as it could be done locally, and then put it in a big box with yet another bit of packaging, and put everything in a big box and then ship it with higher tariff codes to some location where you receive it and still have to finish putting it together. And it's probably not dialed in and tuned properly. Right? So we looked at the experience and quality of product and the net cost to consumer all having a big advantage with this type of model.

CRAIG: Interesting. So the bike, the OB1 really can be quite a versatile chassis, if you will. It can be almost a platform for every type of riding that you want to do. As we've talked over the day that we've talked about road riding. So talk about the OB1 as a road bike.

RANDALL: Gravel bikes in general are just the road bikes that the industry should have been selling regular people all along. So you look road bikes and generally they’re race replicas. The head tubes are short. The steering is more aggressive. The tires are really skinny. People are still riding 23mm tires at 130 PSI, which not only is not comfortable, it's actually slower than a higher volume tire. Not to mention the braking on carbon rims in the wet and all these other issues. The OB1 we designed to be...the one bike for every road.

So as a road bike it's got an endurance road type geometry and the road wheel package that’s a 44 depth, 22 internal, a 30 external rim that we pair with a supple 30 millimeter tubeless tire from WTB that rides super smooth and super fast. So I'll take that bike and go out and hammer with the local hammerheads on Scotty's ride or do some of the longer road rides that we see out here and keep up just fine. There's no deficit., and actually with the dropper, I'm descending faster than they are because I can do it more confidently and more aero because I can get into that crazy tuck.

You get a lot of questions on the gravel side. We spoke about the advantages of the flare bar and the dropper and swapping in the 650B wheelset. In my case, on my road we'll set I run an 10-42 [cassette] to give me a little bit taller gearing on the high end. And then on the gravel set I run an 11-46, which gives me a little bit more low end so I can climb up all the dirt walls here in Marin. For touring. the geometry is long and stable enough where you can do light touring, which with today's gear makes it entirely capable. It’'ll take 10 plus kilos in the front and the rear. It has all the bosses for that. If you’re bike packing, it has plenty of room in the front triangle and again, has all the mounting points for anything you'd want to take.

If you look at the actual differences between these types of bikes, it's mostly tire clearance, mounting points, and marketing. Those are the primary differences between a road bike and gravel bike and a cross bike and all these other bikes. Some might add geometry, but that's more at the extremes. With the OB1, we have a geometry that is at the overlapping point in the Venn diagram of all these different sub-niches. So you really can have one bike for everything. And with this bike, we wanted to demonstrate that the myth of N+1, which is used to sell more bike, is false… At most, you need one bike with two wheel sets.

CRAIG: Yeah, it's interesting. I'm going to think that's a realization that many cyclists will come to in time. And it's, it's fascinating to me. And for those of my listeners who have listened for a long time, they know my journey to gravel riding came from this notion of bike packing that I never truly realized. But having a bike in the closet that enabled me to ride on the road, ride on gravel, which is my primary pursuit, and occasionally get out there and do some light touring or bike packing really was a revelation. And the realization that one bike really could do it all. And frankly when I'm in a group road ride, it's not my bike that's the limiting factor. It's generally my legs which goes to show [it’s not] the bike I'm riding. And I think your bike...can do it all. When you're really honest about the type of rider that you are and can be like, neither one of us are on the pro tour, so we're not looking for marginal gains that on the extremes.

RANDALL: And those marginal gains are very marginal. 80% of aerodynamic drag is your body. A good chunk of what remains is the wheels, and we have an aerodynamic wheelset that's paired with the wide tires so you really can get very close to the bleeding edge and still not have a machine that is compromised for every other application. If you're gonna go out and do the local crits, you might want to get a road bike. For all the rest of us, get one really good bike that you'll have a much better time on. You'll probably be faster with that one good bike versus spreading those same resources over several mediocre ones.

CRAIG: Yeah. Well it's a really interesting bike. It's a beautiful bike. I encourage everybody to go to the website. I'll put that in the podcast notes. So people can check it out and I think it's a bike that begs to be looked at. I think you show a lot of the different ways in which the bike can be used on the website, which is great. I think it gives our listeners a lot to think about. So what's next for THESIS bike? When can we order one? How can people find you? How can they learn more about the philosophy and just get to understand the brand and you as a designer?

RANDALL: By the time you broadcast this podcast, we will probably have sales live or be approaching it. We have a waitlist currently that is getting increasingly long. We've done a few sales with friends and family at this point just to run them through the buying process and work out all the kinks before we open it up to a general audience. But yeah, we're expecting within the next couple of weeks, so by the time this podcast goes out.

As far as what's next for THESIS, we mentioned that the bike comes 90 percent unassembled. We have some very interesting partnerships in the works for local assembly and are hoping to have that as a checkbox option at checkout when you buy your OB1.

A part of the vision here, in addition to wanting to make a great product and an innovative business model, is to really provide an opportunity for the unsung heroes of the bike industry, your mechanics and fitters as well as the factories that are actually producing and increasingly engineering things...for them to have new and better opportunities to be compensated for the work they do. Having a model where a mechanic can get paid for their expertise in helping you with your curation and fit, and then make money on the assembly experience as well. And have, instead of an oppositional relationship between mechanic and customer where the customer doesn't know if the mechanic is just trying to sell them something, to have a relationship. We work with those parties to provide the rider with the best experience possible, whether it be with equipment or maintaining that equipment.

The single best return on investment that you can get in cycling is not equipment. It may be diet, but after diet and training it is definitely a professional build and fit. You'll be more comfortable. Your equipment will last far longer. And we want to have a model that provides the right incentive structure where people take advantage.

CRAIG: Interesting. Well we definitely look forward to learning more about that. If people have questions for you are there social channels they can connect with you on, or an email address, website and the like?

RANDALL: You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. You can contact me at randall@thesis.bike. or if you just have general questions, hello@thesis.bike.

CRAIG: Okay, great. Well best of luck with the brand. I look forward to riding with you again and continuing to spend a little bit more time on the bike. As I said, my initial ride shows it's a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to that and I wish you guys all the best. For my listeners, definitely check out the website. I'll put it in the notes, put that in the media podcast notes so people can find you easily. And yeah, I hope you have a great summer with this.

RANDALL: Yeah, thanks a lot. Looking forward to that next ride.

CRAIG: Awesome.

]]>Randall Jacobs, Co-Founder of THESIS Bike drops in to talk about the development process and vision for the OB1 bicycle.

CRAIG: All right. Hello everyone. Today we've got Randall Jacobs from THESIS Bike here, live in person. We're going to talk to him about the THESIS Bike Company and what his inspiration was. We actually just got back from a sample ride here in Marin county riding the new OB1 bike and I'm really excited to introduce everybody to Randall. So thanks for joining us.

RANDALL: Thanks for having me.

CRAIG: I always like to start by finding out a little bit about your background as a rider. Did you start more on the mountain bike side or on the road side?

RANDALL: So I started racing mountain bikes as an undergraduate. I was playing football and broke my foot. Cycling was the first thing I could do and I took to the bicycle on the mountain bike side and did the collegiate series, found that I was reasonably good at it and stuck with it. It's become a real lifestyle ever since.

CRAIG: And did that lead you into other elements of the sport?

RANDALL: I went on to move overseas for a period and rode on and off. When I was 25, I had a life event where my father became sick. I was looking at where he was. He had a brain tumor at the time, so pretty bad prognosis. I said, what are the things I'd like to have accomplished in his position? Being a pro athlete was one of those things. So I started training full time. I was lucky to win a couple of national championships as an amateur shortly after he passed and then spent the subsequent couple of years living out of my Honda Element traveling around the country with a fleet of bicycles that was worth probably 5X what the car was worth.

CRAIG: So you're racing on the national mountain bike scene at that point?

RANDALL: Yeah. I was, you could say, pack fodder on the US Cup circuit, and then I'd have a few good results in the local circuits.

CRAIG: What a great journey. Spending that much time doing it. I think it's something that a lot of people aspire to just following their dreams of bike racing and going out there and doing it and it's certainly not without its sacrifices.

RANDALL: It's certainly is. I was fortunate in my case in that I had started a career in international trade and supply chain architecture where I could work remotely anywhere in the world. So in that regard it didn't cost too much, but you definitely put certain other things on hold being on the road all the time.

CRAIG: So when you hung up your racing cleats, what was next for you professionally?

RANDALL: From there I started a product development company where we were working with the same set of Chinese manufacturers that I had cultivated during my period running product and market development for the Chinese trading and manufacturing company. I then sold that company to one of our partners and went to work for Specialized in 2013. At Specialized, the Diverge project was in its early days. I actually ended up naming that bike and was the product developer for the project, so doing all the bike builds and negotiating all the deals with the vendors and so on, and coordinating the product and supply chain sides.

CRAIG: So you were helping sort of spec out the supply chain and the specifications for the original Diverge bike while you were there?

RANDALL: Correct. And doing a lot of the field testing and component compatibility testing to make sure everything was fully dialed, which is where you see my obsessive attention to detail come in.

CRAIG: The Diverge bike, it was really one of the first production, quote unquote gravel bikes to hit the market from a big manufacturers that right?

RANDALL: For sure. The first bike that was called a gravel bike. I mean, there had been people riding such bikes for quite some time. When that bike came out, it was the early days of drop bar disc brakes, which really opened up a lot not just for braking power and modulation, but also for tire clearance. That was a key enabling technology that allows you to have the sort of bikes we have today, the other one being tubeless tires. And in today's world, tubeless tires with really wide rims allows you to have a bicycle, a drop bar bike, that is fast like a road bike on the road and as capable or more so than what a mountain bike would have been not too long ago.

CRAIG: Gotcha. So the Diverge, was it the end all be all? Was it everything you wanted to make in a gravel bike?

RANDALL: No. Of course, there are constraints on what we were able to do at that time for a variety of reasons. When you work for a big company, there's always going to be product decisions that are more due to a cost structure or needing to support a certain margin and marketing story. So with the OB1 it was really something I had been incubating for quite some time and it's my opportunity to take an unfettered approach to product from the ground up. I've had to compromise on nothing: not tire clearance, not stick-on or bolt-on magic elastomers attached to the frame, nothing. I just went ground up with pure evidenced-based curation of the components and the setup.

CRAIG: Interesting. So we're here to talk about your new company that you cofounded, THESIS Bike, and you just referenced your first model, the OB1. Some of the motivation has already come out in the conversation about why you wanted to start this company, but why now? What are the trends you're seeing? You're doing some unique stuff at THESIS that we'll get into as far as the bike itself and the business model, but why now and why are you guys the people to do it?

RANDALL: If you look at what we're doing, the primary innovation here is this business model. But the product itself is really cool and one I've been thinking about for awhile, so let's start with the product itself. So you saw bikes like the Open UP come online, which really brought an almost monster cross capability in a form factor that is more akin to an endurance road bike that's slacked out a little bit.

We wanted to go a step further. So if you look, we don't do a frame set. We do a complete bike for the cost of a frameset from the companies were competing with, and that's enabled by the business model innovation.

On the product side of things, [we have] a flat top handle bar with a shallow drop and a 10 degree flare so you’re narrow and relatively aero on the hoods, but in the drops you have that additional control which has benefits not just in gravel but also when you're just doing a road descent. You just had that much more leverage. Or even like in a sprint. You see this on ENVE’s road handle bars. They have a model that has a four degree flair, a little subtle thing. And I think you'll see flare bars start to catch on across disciplines, even with roadies or at least the more progressive roadies who aren't so traditional in their equipment choices.

On the wheels, we do 650B and 700C wheel pack package options. In our case both wheel packages use a high end carbon rim. With the 650B we go really wide, 27.3 internal width, so 33.3 external. And what that does is it takes your tire, like the WTB Byway we have as standard, and it brings it out from 47 to almost 50 millimeters and changes the profile such that the side knobs engage a bit sooner and you can drop the pressure down and not have the tire flopping around. So I'll ride out to the trail chasing down roadies at 45 psi and then I'll drop it down to 30 and the rear in 27 in the front and ride it like a full on cross country bike. And I'm passing people on dualies. So that's another kind of small detail along with the flare bar.

The other thing is the dropper post, which you experienced today, which really transforms the bike. Anyone who's coming from the mountain scene knows that you'd probably rather give up a couple inches of suspension rather than your dropper. On the gravel bike gets that much more game changing because you're starting with no suspension.

CRAIG: It was certainly an interesting moment for me. Randall generously let me take the dropper post on all the descents today. So I had a good time doing that and it was interesting because I've obviously I've ridden the dropper posts on my mountain bike quite regularly for the last half dozen years or so. And I was quite familiar with the benefits to that with the gravel bike. It was interesting creating that sort of pocket of space underneath me because I simply wasn't familiar with it ever doing that on a drop bar bike. And I definitely appreciated the tight integration with the lever so that on the SRAM shifter, Randall has hacked it so that it controls the dropper post for you. So instead of having a front chain ring, a shifter, I can shift the dropper posts down right from the handlebars.

RANDALL: Yeah. And that's a pretty simple hack that we will be documenting with a video real soon. But essentially with SRAM’s modern hydraulic front shifters, there's a one minute hack that's fully reversible to remove the ratchet mechanism and allow that shift lever to swing freely and thus actuate the dropper post, which is really slick. I use it more than I ever used the front derailleur.

CRAIG: So that was interesting. As most people who listened to his podcast know, I tend to ride my gravel bike on more mountain biking style terrain than the kind of flow and fire roads that are often known in other parts of the country for gravel. So for me, this is something I've been thinking about for awhile, checking out a dropper post. So it was a lot of fun. And I definitely will say that if you're on the type of steep terrain that sort of characterizes the terrain in Marin County, it's definitely a value add. And there's a small weight penalty but not a dramatic weight penalty given that sort of benefits of speed going down.

RANDALL: Yeah. There is this common misconception I'll describe where you pick up a bike and you say, “Oh, that's really light. It must be fast”. But really there's a lot of ways in which you can make a bike heavier and faster. So as an example, with a dropper post, you're able to descend that much faster, not just on the super steep terrain that we were riding today, but even on less steep but really fast terrain with loose sweepers where you don't drop it all the way down. You drop it down just enough so that you have a little bit more control and you can shift your weight back and so on, and you go through with more confidence. The other thing is you can brake that much harder. So you're braking vastly more with the rear brake versus the front brake. And you can break with both of them in a “holy crap” sort of situation and have more traction and not be ready to go over the handlebars like you would be if you were sitting on top of a fully extended post.

CRAIG: Yeah, I think it's one of those things that we will definitely start to see more and more of. I think there is a somewhat of a sentiment in gravel to be respectful of our road brethren and then the changes maybe are slower to be adopted for more aesthetic reasons than anything else, but I can definitely vouch for the, the sort of performance benefits of the dropper post from what I've evidenced today in today's short ride. I do want to talk about a little bit more about the frame set too. It's a carbon frame set, correct?

RANDALL” Yup. Full carbon frame set.

CRAIG: And you've got a lot of mounts spec’ed down there, which I think is interesting. So let's talk about the mounts and some of the other things that make this bike essentially a quiver killer. Something that you can replace your road bike. And many other bikes in your garage.

RANDALL: The frameset [features] a full carbon frame and fork. I'm using the same Toray carbon fiber that everybody else uses. In our case it's T700 to T800 other people give it some fancy acronym for the same thing. It's all mostly coming from the same place.

We've done a few things that are common and few things that are unique. So on the common side, we have a full suite of bosses: cage mounts inside the frame, third cage on the down tube, a bento up top. But we've [added] to the fork blades more bottle cage bosses that are also sturdy enough to handle a front rack. We have rear rack mounts as well. So you could set this up as a full touring setup and put 10 kilos or more on the front and 15 on the back, plus a frame bag, and be on your way for your next epic adventure.

Some other smaller details that I think are really important are on the fork. Steerer tube failure has always been a big concern of mine or you've seen a bunch of recalls in the industry, some of them associated with improper manufacturing but some of them associated with the clamping force of the stem actually crushing the carbon. And so if anyone in the audience has built a carbon frame of the carbon steer before they'll see that you have this expansion plug that goes in. And we looked at all of them and none that can be found on the open market did a good job of fully supporting the steerer. So we actually bonded an aluminum tube with a built in star nut into our forks, which you can then cut and shorten. And that's a safety feature. You really have no way to install it improperly because you don't install it. It's already there. And if you're traveling a lot and you're removing your stem and reinstalling it, you can over-torque it, but it's still not going to crush the carbon. Carbon is a brilliant material in tension, but it's terrible in compression. So that was another small detail where we really paid a lot of attention.

The other thing that you noticed is we decided to forego the drop stay which you see on a bike like the Open or the new Ibis Hakka. Those bikes accommodate a slightly larger tire. I think they can go up to like a 2.2. Our bicycle is optimized around a 700C x 40 or 650b x 47, which has the same radius as a 700C x 30. And that [the 700C x 30) is actually what we use on the road.

For our [650B] wheelset, we went with a wide rim that expands the tire to almost 50 millimeters. And what we found is that’s kind of the sweet spot for maintaining a road geometry, look and feel while still giving you all the capabilities of a borderline monster cross or light XC bike.

CRAIG: Gotcha. And you're offering both a single chain ring and a double chain ring. Correct?

RANDALL: Yeah. If you're considering going with the 1x, go for it. I’m all in on 1x myself. We’re offering the double because there's a lot of people who want to go that route. We can talk about pluses and minuses here. With the 1x you get the clutch so the chain’s not slapping around. It also frees up the left shift lever for the dropper, which I think, once you've experienced it, you won't want to ride without it. I think it's really a game changer as much as anything else you can do. But yeah, we'll do a 2x as well.

In both cases you have a few different gearing options so you can really dial it in. If you're not super fit and you live in a really hilly area, go with a 38 or 40 in the front. If you're super fit and live in a flatter area, go with a 46 with a 10-42 in the rear to give you plenty of high end. Same with the double. We're working on 46/30 or 48/32 options. We're just doing the compatibility testing right now before we offer it.

CRAIG: In addition to designing the frame, you've also designed the wheel set and some of the other components. Is that right?

RANDALL: Well, so this word designed. We started with a frame set that had all of the characteristics that we wanted. The same is true for the rims. And that's true in wheels in particular. Almost nobody is designing their own rems or if they do, they just spec a profile and they say to an engineer at the factory, please do the layup for me. So we started with a frame that met the vast majority of our criteria and then worked with the factory on over 100 different line item changes to bring it up to where we thought it needed to be. So simple things from additional chainring clearance, to adding 3K carbon reinforcement under every single boss and cut out in the frame to give it that much more strength and fray resistance, to adding fiberglass at all the interfaces with metal so you don't get galvanic corrosion. All these little granular things that you don't think about until it's a year down the road and you're trying to remove your seat post and it won't come out because it's bonded to the carbon. We did all of those things.

CRAIG: Presumably you were traveling overseas to work directly with the factory.

RANDALL: Oh yeah. Yeah. So I've spent a couple of weeks in the factories and then quite a bit of time late at night on calls. That gives us a big advantage.

I've been working in supply chain since I started working. This was back when I was 21. I'm approaching 36 now. I'm a fluent mandarin speaker, so that allows a degree of relationship and interaction that's just not possible if you're an English speaker. So I go into a factory and I don't just speak English with the boss, I am speaking Mandarin with a line worker to understand the process that they're going through as they're making that part, what are the common failure modes as they're doing that so we can then work the engineers to design around it. And this is something that's really important to me and that I enjoy doing tremendously.

CRAIG: For those of our listeners who aren't that familiar with the bike industry, how different is that process from what a major manufacturer goes through? Are you dealing with the same types of factories, the same types of materials that you would be at a Specialized or a Trek?

RANDALL: Everyone's using from the same subset of factories, using the same materials, the same manufacturing techniques. There's almost nothing new in our industry. It’s rare that you come across something new, which is why you see quite a bit of odd looking “innovation”. It's really just a way of trying to stand out in some way. So part of our thesis is that we innovate only where that innovation provides a genuine benefit to the customer. So as an example, on our wheelset, we didn't design a custom profile. We went and found one of the best manufacturers in China, who's manufacturing rims for all the big players. They had an off the shelf rim. We worked with them to modify the layup slightly to make it optimized for a gravel application. So in our case, that meant taking a mountain bike rim with a mountain bike width that gives you that tire stability on the 650B set, and lightening the layup because it doesn't need quite as much of a burly build as it would for, say, the enduro application for which it was designed.

CRAIG: Gotcha. So in addition to the sort of manufacturing processes of the bike, you're reinventing how you're going to sell to customers. Obviously selling direct is not something totally new, but for the bike industry and customers purchasing a bike, it is a relatively new experience to go direct to a smaller brand and buy online. Can you just talk a little bit about that decision and the type of relationship you want to foster with the customers and why you thought it was important to direct?

RANDALL: Sure. From a product standpoint, it allows us to offer a very granular degree of customization. When you buy a traditional bike, you're buying a complete bike. If the handlebar width isn't right, the crank length isn't right, the gearing isn't right, you're then spending money after the fact to swap that out or you're just dealing with it. And that's unfortunate given how many times that bike has been marked up and what you're paying for it.

The other thing is, our price point is $2999, and for what we offer, that is, I mean, there's nothing else that approaches that. You can buy competing frame sets that cost that much or even slightly more. The way that we're able to accomplish that is by being as close to factory direct as you can get.

And it's actually better than factory direct because when you go factory direct, first off, no factory is going to sell you one handlebar, right? So you need a certain amount of buying volume to get that pricing. Additionally, component compatibility. You'd have to deal with “how do I high spec my bike with all these components that I've curated”. You don't have the same access to information and resources that say somebody on the inside like myself is fortunate to have.

We took a model where we work directly with the same factories who are supplying all the big brands. We work with the top of the line, open components. So we have a hollow forged crank from Samox that is lighter than Rival and comes with a spindly chain ring, and it's a really stiff and bomb proof package that can take a rock strike.

That’s one example. It’s the same with our frame set, same with our wheel packages and so on. We do assembly of the wheels and bundling of certain components in China and ship those out. And then we bundle all the components from Taiwan and we ship those out from there. So you receive two boxes of components that have been validated to work really well with each other and that you've been able to customize to your particular body, your use case, and even to your style if you want to. If you had a baby blue car with little metallic flecks in the paint when you were in high school or something like that, and you want to replicate it, send us a Pantone number and for a small up-charge we’ll get you exactly the color that you want.

CRAIG: Wow. So you mentioned two boxes are going to get shipped. The bike is not assembled correctly when it arrives. That's a little bit different than some of the other direct to consumer brands who are touting [that] all you need is an allen wrench and we'll be ready to go in five minutes. Let's talk a little bit about that.

RANDALL: So there are some brands that I've heard do a pretty good job there. Canyon is one that stands out, they do a pretty good quality build is what I've heard from mechanics, but that is not the general standard. So if you talk to many who work in shops, the really good ones tend to disassemble a factory built bike and then reassemble it to make sure it's done right. It's just hard to get that attention to detail on a mass assembly line and furthermore, they're not fit to the rider. And so you're still having to do a bunch of tweaking and so on.

So going back to why we named the company THESIS, we saw a way to both have the net cost to the rider be lower and get them a product that fits them and their riding style much better. A frame up assembly at Sports Basement [a Bay Area retailer] is 280 bucks. And now you have a local mechanic who did that build to your standard, helped you tweak it and fit it and so on. Obviously a full on custom fit is going to be a little bit more money, but that's the case with all of these bikes. Nobody's bundling in a fit, and furthermore, it would cost us more to ship everything to a single facility, have it assembled poorly or not as well as it could be done locally, and then put it in a big box with yet another bit of packaging, and put everything in a big box and then ship it with higher tariff codes to some location where you receive it and still have to finish putting it together. And it's probably not dialed in and tuned properly. Right? So we looked at the experience and quality of product and the net cost to consumer all having a big advantage with this type of model.

CRAIG: Interesting. So the bike, the OB1 really can be quite a versatile chassis, if you will. It can be almost a platform for every type of riding that you want to do. As we've talked over the day that we've talked about road riding. So talk about the OB1 as a road bike.

RANDALL: Gravel bikes in general are just the road bikes that the industry should have been selling regular people all along. So you look road bikes and generally they’re race replicas. The head tubes are short. The steering is more aggressive. The tires are really skinny. People are still riding 23mm tires at 130 PSI, which not only is not comfortable, it's actually slower than a higher volume tire. Not to mention the braking on carbon rims in the wet and all these other issues. The OB1 we designed to be...the one bike for every road.

So as a road bike it's got an endurance road type geometry and the road wheel package that’s a 44 depth, 22 internal, a 30 external rim that we pair with a supple 30 millimeter tubeless tire from WTB that rides super smooth and super fast. So I'll take that bike and go out and hammer with the local hammerheads on Scotty's ride or do some of the longer road rides that we see out here and keep up just fine. There's no deficit., and actually with the dropper, I'm descending faster than they are because I can do it more confidently and more aero because I can get into that crazy tuck.

You get a lot of questions on the gravel side. We spoke about the advantages of the flare bar and the dropper and swapping in the 650B wheelset. In my case, on my road we'll set I run an 10-42 [cassette] to give me a little bit taller gearing on the high end. And then on the gravel set I run an 11-46, which gives me a little bit more low end so I can climb up all the dirt walls here in Marin. For touring. the geometry is long and stable enough where you can do light touring, which with today's gear makes it entirely capable. It’'ll take 10 plus kilos in the front and the rear. It has all the bosses for that. If you’re bike packing, it has plenty of room in the front triangle and again, has all the mounting points for anything you'd want to take.

If you look at the actual differences between these types of bikes, it's mostly tire clearance, mounting points, and marketing. Those are the primary differences between a road bike and gravel bike and a cross bike and all these other bikes. Some might add geometry, but that's more at the extremes. With the OB1, we have a geometry that is at the overlapping point in the Venn diagram of all these different sub-niches. So you really can have one bike for everything. And with this bike, we wanted to demonstrate that the myth of N+1, which is used to sell more bike, is false… At most, you need one bike with two wheel sets.

CRAIG: Yeah, it's interesting. I'm going to think that's a realization that many cyclists will come to in time. And it's, it's fascinating to me. And for those of my listeners who have listened for a long time, they know my journey to gravel riding came from this notion of bike packing that I never truly realized. But having a bike in the closet that enabled me to ride on the road, ride on gravel, which is my primary pursuit, and occasionally get out there and do some light touring or bike packing really was a revelation. And the realization that one bike really could do it all. And frankly when I'm in a group road ride, it's not my bike that's the limiting factor. It's generally my legs which goes to show [it’s not] the bike I'm riding. And I think your bike...can do it all. When you're really honest about the type of rider that you are and can be like, neither one of us are on the pro tour, so we're not looking for marginal gains that on the extremes.

RANDALL: And those marginal gains are very marginal. 80% of aerodynamic drag is your body. A good chunk of what remains is the wheels, and we have an aerodynamic wheelset that's paired with the wide tires so you really can get very close to the bleeding edge and still not have a machine that is compromised for every other application. If you're gonna go out and do the local crits, you might want to get a road bike. For all the rest of us, get one really good bike that you'll have a much better time on. You'll probably be faster with that one good bike versus spreading those same resources over several mediocre ones.

CRAIG: Yeah. Well it's a really interesting bike. It's a beautiful bike. I encourage everybody to go to the website. I'll put that in the podcast notes. So people can check it out and I think it's a bike that begs to be looked at. I think you show a lot of the different ways in which the bike can be used on the website, which is great. I think it gives our listeners a lot to think about. So what's next for THESIS bike? When can we order one? How can people find you? How can they learn more about the philosophy and just get to understand the brand and you as a designer?

RANDALL: By the time you broadcast this podcast, we will probably have sales live or be approaching it. We have a waitlist currently that is getting increasingly long. We've done a few sales with friends and family at this point just to run them through the buying process and work out all the kinks before we open it up to a general audience. But yeah, we're expecting within the next couple of weeks, so by the time this podcast goes out.

As far as what's next for THESIS, we mentioned that the bike comes 90 percent unassembled. We have some very interesting partnerships in the works for local assembly and are hoping to have that as a checkbox option at checkout when you buy your OB1.

A part of the vision here, in addition to wanting to make a great product and an innovative business model, is to really provide an opportunity for the unsung heroes of the bike industry, your mechanics and fitters as well as the factories that are actually producing and increasingly engineering things...for them to have new and better opportunities to be compensated for the work they do. Having a model where a mechanic can get paid for their expertise in helping you with your curation and fit, and then make money on the assembly experience as well. And have, instead of an oppositional relationship between mechanic and customer where the customer doesn't know if the mechanic is just trying to sell them something, to have a relationship. We work with those parties to provide the rider with the best experience possible, whether it be with equipment or maintaining that equipment.

The single best return on investment that you can get in cycling is not equipment. It may be diet, but after diet and training it is definitely a professional build and fit. You'll be more comfortable. Your equipment will last far longer. And we want to have a model that provides the right incentive structure where people take advantage.

CRAIG: Interesting. Well we definitely look forward to learning more about that. If people have questions for you are there social channels they can connect with you on, or an email address, website and the like?

RANDALL: You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. You can contact me at randall@thesis.bike. or if you just have general questions, hello@thesis.bike.

CRAIG: Okay, great. Well best of luck with the brand. I look forward to riding with you again and continuing to spend a little bit more time on the bike. As I said, my initial ride shows it's a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to that and I wish you guys all the best. For my listeners, definitely check out the website. I'll put it in the notes, put that in the media podcast notes so people can find you easily. And yeah, I hope you have a great summer with this.

Yeah, I always like to start off the conversation by understanding a little bit more about you as a rider. So what's your background as a writer? I've been riding a long, long time.

It all started when I was a little kid and I became a bmx through BMX. I kinda got into road a little bit and then around age 16 to 20, sort of took a break from riding because I had a car and I got interested in chasing girls and it wasn't particularly good at that. So around 20 a I got back into riding through mountain bike and this was around 1990 and uh, I just fell hard for it and ever since then have been been somewhat of a fanatical rider, a mountain bike racer, a little bit of road, a lot more cyclocross lately. Uh, and then I've kind of gotten more into an exploration bent in the last few years through um, through gravel and, and bike packing and stuff like that.

Great. And how did you find your way to being an employee of track? Oh, interesting story.

I was actually chasing a girl and I caught her. She wanted a teaching fellowship here in Wisconsin and invited me to come along. I couldn't say no. And knowing that I'd need a job, I sent a resume to trek. I had already been in retail for some years at that time and got the job here at the time it was supposed to be a one year deal and now nearly 14 years later we are happily married and living in Madison, Wisconsin.

Perfect. And how did your role evolve? Did you start out in product management or are you doing something else at the company?

I entered the company through the sales department is an inside rep, which is the inroad for many employees here at Trek. We kind of call it the farm and then from there, we often move on to other positions. Once I decided to stay in Wisconsin, I knew I wanted to work in a product. I just didn't think there'd be anything cooler than getting a chance to actually make stuff.

Absolutely at a scale that Trek operates on, I'm sure those product decisions are really thrilling to make knowing the number of riders that you impact with any given product

For sure we reach a lot of riders, but at the same time it's stressful because the, these decisions are impactful. They're important. And your answering the needs of a very, very broad range of people and dealers and, and yeah, things have to be done carefully.

Did you find yourself more in off road model, product management or a road along the way?

I am product manager in the city bikes division and city bikes is kind of the catchall for everything else. This means bikes like fitness hybrids, leisure bikes, our electric. And then in recent years we have taken on the adventure bikes which I am solely responsible for and that includes our venerable 420 touring bike, uh, in the nine slash 2011, 20 off road touring and back bike packing bikes. And then most recently I got the opportunity to develop the Checkpoint gravel bike, which is what we're talking about today.

Yeah, that's really interesting as you described, kind of your personal interest in off road riding and mountain biking and later how like for many of us that evolved to just general adventure riding, it's interesting. Professionally I imagined to see all that come together and finally get a crack at a gravel bike on behalf of Trek.

Yeah, it's a pretty awesome responsibility and opportunity and seeing how even now at gravel seems like a very big, well established category, but it's really kind of the wild west. I mean there's still a huge variety of things and concepts being developed in ideas about how they're being used on the requests we get from our dealers and various regions about what they they'd like to see are all over the map. It's super exciting in that way.

Yeah, it's interesting that you bring that up because I personally have seen my interest in gravel come from a lot of different directions. I do like you have a pretty solid mountain biking background, but my interest in gravel really came from the more adventurous side of cycling. I started becoming really interesting in the idea of bike packing and following those ultra endurance races like the tour divide and things like that and while I only done a minimal amount of bike packing myself, I saw the appeal of it and I started to see the appeal of being less speed orientated and more adventure oriented and you know, those were some of the trends that led me to become passionate about gravel cycling. And, and to your point, as I've explored the sport more and more and talked to more and more people, it's fairly clear that the definition of what a gravel ride is means something totally different to someone in northern California versus Wisconsin versus Vermont versus Florida. So I'm curious to explore that a little bit with you as someone who is tasked with defining what the gravel category may look like and bringing all these trends together. What was that thought process like at Trek?

We try and approach things like this in a clean slate manner. So involved lots of phone interviews with our partners and dealers who had been requesting this from us. I'm readily admit we're a little late to the party, but when I embarked on the research through that and through traveling to markets where I knew a gravel was, was, and in some places almost the entire cycling market, that's what I found. I found that the spectrum was really, really broad and there wasn't a single attribute that everybody wanted a really what bubbled up from it all was that even within an individual, there is not a single gravel ride. I'm a good example is the dirty Kanza 200 is, is the granddaddy of all the gravel race events, but most of them in that area wouldn't tell you that that's the kind of riding they do all the time. They don't go out on three huge gravel centuries a week. They ride all different ways. They, they ride sometimes short and fast rides that behave much more like a road ride would, except on gravel. Uh, some of them are, are into bike packing. So it's even within an individual user, we're finding people who want to have a variety of experiences. And uh, yeah, that was, that was a big eyeopener for us.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that that is how I look at gravel and I think a lot of the people I've spoken to look at it in the same way. And to your point, I've been a Trek owner on a number of different occasions and I remember a couple of years back seeing the Boone as being the only thing sort of that fit loosely my desire in the gravel space. But it wasn't quite there yet. So I was surprised frankly that last year we didn't have a bike. Like the checkpoint come out from Trek.

Yeah. And there was a little pressure, you know, it quickly went from something we in our product department or asking to do to something that, that we really needed to do with emergency. The Boone is a great race gravel platform. But as, as I was just saying, when you look out over the spectrum of riders and how they're being used, a race, cyclocross bike just isn't quite versatile enough. It doesn't have the kinds of mounting options that riders wanted that generally doesn't have the tire clearance. And I think that's true of a lot of companies cyclocross bikes. We had this big surge in popularity in that discipline and that meant everybody just started offering a very race focused bike. But you know, in the old days a cyclocross bike was more versatile bike, wasn't it? Yup.

Absolutely. So let's talk about the Checkpoint. It's a really exciting offering from Trek in the gravel space and it sounded like, it sounds like you distilled a lot of different things into this one concept that was going to be a switchblade of sorts for a bike in your garage. Let's talk a little bit about that and, and the things that were built into it.

We have a huge toolbox, will have developed technologies and proprietary items. I'm going into it. I knew there wasn't going to be a reinvention of the wheel necessary here. We quickly distill the list of attributes and features that the riders needed. A, one of them was huge tire clearance. Another one was versatility and mounting options, and then another one was stability and that one we had to be really careful with. Um, so in looking at that we quickly realized that you didn't need much more off road capability than was offered in a world cup winning cyclocross bike. So we began with the Boones geometry. We added a little bit of comfort to it with a little bit more stack height and a little bit more bottom bracket drop. We're talking a matter of millimeters of bottom bracket, drop the clutch feature for the stability though is the stranglehold dropout. With that we were allowed to build a bike that has the same tight rear triangle is erased. Cyclocross bike but can be slid out 15 millimeters into a much longer rear end, which adds stability in that way. A rider doesn't have to choose one over the other. Uh, the bike within the short position rides really fast and lively and it's fun to ride. But then when you stretch out that rear end, it gets really stable, which is what these, uh, you know, Middle America, Kansas, Oklahoma, gravel riders really look for in a gravel path.

I know there's a number of more attributes that you're going to talk about other bike, but I'd love to drill into the Stranglehold because it's a really unique and I think from an engineering perspective of very complicated part of the bike, because the ability to move that dropout, I'm noticing that you also need to move the disc brake mount alongside of that obviously to, to line it up. It seems difficult to achieve.

Well, it's actually one of those toolbox features I mentioned. We developed that originally for the Stash, a big fat mountain bike. And then our brethren in the road group adapted it to the Crockett, a cyclocross platform, which in its own way has a little bit of a gravel bent. So the pieces for this already existed and what it entails is a couple of precision machined dropout inserts. And the one on the left side in particular is the axle directly to the brake mounts. So when you moved them, they moved together in alignment is not disrupted between the two, so it's actually a fairly easy adjustment to make and then the design of it is so robust that when it's tightened down there's no creaking, no sliding, and that was another area where they just knew they had to nail it.

Yeah, it's really interesting. For my listeners who haven't seen a picture of it, I encourage you to go check it out because I just think it's a fascinating piece of engineering there. I noticed you've also gone with that, the dropped drive side chains day and a lot of different mounts, which I think is interesting and important. Can you talk a little bit about those decisions as well?

Absolutely. So the drops stay on the drive side is about the only practical solution to address the problem of road drive trains. Gravel bikes are still designed around road drive trains, which by nature are designed around skinny tires and wheels. We wanted a great big tire. We wanted relatively short chain stays and when you start cramming all that stuff together, things start to bump into each other. So one way that we relieved that clearance is by doing the asymmetric dropped stay, which creates a little bit more tire clearance on that drive side of the tire. The mounting features, the little water bottle mounts in particular, what kind of a happy accident. The design engineer on this project, his name is Travis Brown, not the famous racer, Travis Brown. He had this idea that he wanted to be able to fit three water bottles in the front inside of the, uh, main triangle by putting an extra amount high on the main triangle and then mounting the lower bottle as low as possible. And then the bottle on the seat tube goes up. Uh, I thought it was a pretty ingenious idea, but my research had shown up. Lots and lots of writers are using frame bags and half frame bags. I said, that sounds great, but we can't have a water bottle encroaching on the bag space. And we went back and forth and back and forth. And then he quickly realized that all they had to do is poke another couple of holes in the frame, create a couple of mounting options so that seat tube bottle can be mounted in a high position or a low position and now we can accommodate both needs with a simple a movement of the bottle cages and that'll work on any of the bikes from 56 and up. The carbon bikes have the upper set of mounts on the smaller sizes and even though you can't fit a bottle there, the mount is available for, for whatever a rider would like to do. We know there's a big diy spirit among these riders out there and guys are coming up with their own solutions for things.

And then you've also got on the top, top of the frame bag and some stuff on the fork as well, right?

That's correct. The fork mount will accept the bag and rack system we developed for the light touring bike called the seven slash 20 as well as conventional front racks. We're seeing more and more of that. I think people are starting to realize that losing weight on the front of a bike for light touring adds stability and, and makes the bike a little easier to manage, handled a little bit more in a balanced manner. So we've got the mounts there. Uh, the mount on the top tube are for just, as you pointed out, a triathlons, triathletes, use these a lot. It's kind of like a good position to put your feed, you know, if you want to put energy gels or what have you. And we're seeing a kind of an ever expanding universe of, of accessories to go there as well.

Yeah, it's kind of a funny thing. I ride my bike on the road as well and I was out this morning, riding with a road riding friend of mine and he was sort of poking fun at me for having that bag there. And I said, listen, you know what? I'm riding off road. I find it really convenient to not have to reach around to my back to grab food at, you know, on the go. And I always get a little bit of crap from my roadie friends when I show up with it, but it is very, very practical.

Yeah, it's very practical. You have it there and instead of rooting around in a pocket you can't see. You can look down and see what your inventory is, how much you've eaten. The gravel events that are popping up all over the place are incredibly grueling. So any of these, any of these comfort adders or big deal to, to the riders who do this kind of riding and racing.

Yeah, absolutely. And that, you know, that's a whole other area of conversation I think is the wide variety of events that are cropping up from ultra endurance events. Like I'm dirty Kanza as you mentioned to all these different types of challenges that I think are really pushing the potential of the types of adventures you can have on these kinds of bikes, which I think is really invigorating for the sport.

It really is. And what I kind of brought back to the organization from the research is that in a lot of ways this feels very much like mountain biking. Did in the nineties, you know, there's a lot of discovery happening, there's a lot of a rider driven innovation happening.

I know there's, there's been, if you follow the chat boards, there's some people out there that, that think this is an industry driven trend and it's exactly the opposite of the rider is driving this trend and driving the innovation and the demand to create things and they are rewarding companies who make the things that they want. It's not enough for you to say that my cyclocross bike can be written on gravel. They want a product that's optimized for the experience they want to have.

Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. Especially your analogy about a mountain biking in the early nineties. I remember that time there was a lot of innovation around equipment and as far as the racing went, I was in the mid Atlantic at that point when I saw a new race on the calendar. It was really about finding new terrain and having a camping experience and just having a good time at the event versus like a very hard core race scene. And I really enjoyed that and I absolutely see the parallels in the gravel racing scene. I think many of us are looking at events as part of our vacations and saying like, oh, it'd be great to go to Rebecca's private Idaho or the crusher and the Tuscher to do a big event, but a experience new terrain and push our equipment will work in those environments for sure.

And another aspect, and I didn't think of this at the time when mountain biking exploded, but one of the greatest about mountain biking is it gave people an opportunity to go cycling without worrying about automotive traffic. And we know that deep down that's kind of what built up gravel. It's scenic and it's rugged and it's beautiful, but in a lot of the places where this is so popular, it happens because these are the most safe roads to ride. From a traffic perspective.

Yeah, absolutely. Even here in the bay area in northern California, I love being able to ride up the dirt, climbs and then descend on the roads. I find myself able to piece together rides where I'm just interacting with so many, so less so much less traffic that the, you know, the day out there just feels safer in some ways for sure. And it's much more serene.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we've covered a little bit about the type of writer you had in mind when you conceived of the Checkpoint. It's curious and Trek lineup, because you do have bikes closely on either side of this, whether it's the Boone platform or that Domane gravel disc, who is the ideal rider for the checkpoint and what would push them either way towards a, a boone or gravel?

A Domane gravel disc. So the short answer is everybody. Checkpoint is a, is hugely popular already. I'm comparing it to a bike, like the, uh, the Domane gravel or the boon. It kind of picks up where they leave off. Those bikes are a little bit more specific. A Domane gravel has kind of an interesting genesis that we've, we've made the Domane for several years and it's one of our most successful road platforms and it has always been capable as a multisurface bike or a gravel bike. It's not quite what you'd want for something like Kansas, you know, where the gravels it's exceptionally harsh and rough, but for the gravel and crushed limestone trail and all of that stuff that, that zigzags all across the country, it's fantastic. Um, so we built a version of it with the Schwab one tire basically to demonstrate its capability. Our dealers had these bikes on their racks with a slick tire, but the lesson learned there is that it's, it's not enough to say the bike can do it. The rider comes into the store and they want to see the bike ready to do the job they want it to do. So we did that bike and we actually did it while the Checkpoint development was taking place. And then knowing that Checkpoint was going to come down the pike this spring and really answer those needs. Uh, and then as we spoke about earlier, the Boone has evolved into a full on race weapon. It is the, it's an excellent, excellent race cyclocross bike, but it lacks the mounts a, it does not have the kind of tire clearance that these riders are demanding. so we wanted to make sure we offered a package that just had it all and, and again, back to write or type one rider. We found a lot in our research was what I like to call the one hook rider. They're not all in the bike industry and they don't all have a garage full of bikes. Some people have one hook to hang a bike from and they want to choose a bike that does as much as possible if it's going to be there on the bike. Where do you start seeing the limitations of the checkpoint is? It is my one bike and I'm going out on a fast paced group road ride and I changed the tires to something more road appropriate.

What kind of shortcomings do I start to see in that model?

Really nothing more than weight. It is a little bit heavier. It's no Emondo, so you, you're not going to want to climb in the rockies is as much as you would like to on a specific lightweight bike, but that's really it. It's geared like a road bike. It's got a little bit broader range, but that's exactly what I do with mine. I have three sets of wheels with different tires on them for, for different flavors and I can get up in the morning and put a set of wheels with a 28 c road tire on in and hang with the fast group ride without any trouble. And then I can also leverage some gravel tires and do what we like to call the urban traipse where we do a sort of road ride connecting some of the local municipal mountain bike trails and whatnot. And you can do anything on it. I'm going to race it in the cross season this coming season it, it's uh, it's extremely capable. I mean it's not a hardcore single track mountain bike, but is definitely the most capable drop bar bicycle we've ever made. I think.

Yeah, I think riders are often surprised when they do invest in a, in a good quality gravel bike that it can play in a lot of different areas. I'm like, you, I, I swap out a 700 set. We'll set with slicks on it to road ride my gravel bike and yes, I feel like I'm maybe losing a little bit of performance in the climbs, but frankly it's usually my legs that are hurting me more than the bike and it does everything you needed to do and I certainly advocate for anybody out there considering buying a new bike to consider gravel bikes as something that, that can do it all.

Yeah, absolutely and as people here inside the organization and outside of have gotten the bikes, I've heard unprompted from a number of people and this is the only road bike I need, you know, if they're not hardcore road racers, they're finding that this bike will, will do anything on the road. They need a road bike to do with all of that added capability.

How do you see the category evolving for Trek? I think the reception of the bike has been super strong. It's clearly a well thought out platform and everything I've read suggests it's a great riding bike. What do you think that means for tracking the future of this category?

Well, we kind of have a script in the way we do in and create lines of bikes. I could already tell you that there's some people that say this thing is awesome. Where's the Slr, you know, and they want a bike that's two pounds lighter and, and has a much more race specific bent a product like the OPEN UP are already out there that are, that are essentially our Amanda type concept built into a gravel platform. And then I think there's gonna be some other demand for, for something that's even a little grittier, a little, you know, a little more rough and tumble, something a little closer to drop our mountain bike that, uh, maybe even accepts more tire. we're looking into all of that and, and you know, we're aware of our place in the spectrum of offerings. Most of our dealers these days carry a vast majority of their product in their stores with us, so we need to be sure that we're introducing products that work for all of them so that it's not confusing because every time you introduce a new product, your, your customers have to think, well, how long, how is this going to live in my store? How am I gonna, what am I going to put it next to? Um, so, so we'll, we'll proceed carefully with this line of bikes is really, really solid from the get go. And then from here we will, uh, we will see what we can do to, to make it even more successful.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, again, it's an extremely well thought out bike from everything you've built into it that I've seen. It looks like a great platform. I'm sure as you said, you'll get people wanting the higher end version of that bike very readily. It is curious to think about the more rugged side of that market and that's the one where I feel like there's a lot of personal preference and choice about what you intend to do. That's going to be complicated, I would imagine, as a product designer to to figure out what are the attributes of that more ruggedized spike in.

Is there a large enough market to you make it interesting for, for a company like Trek for sure, and we pondered this even in the development of Checkpoint though, one of the biggest questions that came up was do we accommodate 650B or not? And the reason in that case, the reason we chose not to is we looked at our history with mountain bikes. We've got some recent history with 27.5 wheel sizes. The market demanded that we offered lots of things that way, but the riders quickly figured out what we thought we already knew, which was that the two nine or we'll just rolls over things better. We think it's going the same way in gravel. Uh, there are some good reasons to run six slash 50 DB. But at the core of it all, we believed that it was because there just weren't good offerings in, in 700 c in the kinds of widths and treads. And that's changing rapidly. So we decided we would stay with that.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. It's been a frequent part of conversations I've had on this podcast about 650b wheels. I happen to enjoy them here in my home terrain in Marin county simply because I ride a lot of very mountain bike oriented terrain. So having that additional tire volume really make sense for me, but I'm the first to acknowledge that in other territories they wouldn't make sense whatsoever and particularly if you were a less aggressive ride or potentially than I am on the mountain bike style stuff. It really doesn't make a lot of sense.

Yeah, it's definitely got some benefits. Another issue with large diameter wheels is you add the wheel, then you add the tire and all of a sudden, like we talked about with the drops state, thanks. Start bumping into each other. So making really small bikes is a bigger challenge. Gear range. For instance, when you go to a much larger tire, you're actually having an effect on your final drive. So thankfully a Shimano has come out with some broader cassettes and I think we'll continue to see that happen, you know, it's, it's driven not just by gravel but by road people are always looking for better climbing gears. Uh, but yeah, in the here and now, what we're seeing now is his tire companies are taking the risks and they're making a really good assortments of off road capable gravel tires and 700 seat. I'm like, we rate the bike to fit a 45. We put a 45 generously. So there's, there's a lot of stuff you can do out there now. Yeah. And I'm actually interested in Shimano as new clutch derailleurs for the roads, like the gravel side because I think that's going to make a big difference when you're running a multiple chain rings in, in chain slap, etc.

Sure, sure. And in my opinion, that'S been a long time coming. I've, I've seen the value of it for a long time. When I started racing cyclocross several years ago, I even hacked a mountain bike derailleurs. It's ram system together because I saw the value of a clutch derailleurs for chain management. They're A. I think that's going to. I think that's going to be a big one. You know, it's going to help chain management. A broader good ranges are going to be easier to manage with something like that. yeah, I think that makes a ton of sense.

David, I wanted to thank you for the conversation. I really learned a lot. It was great to understand a little bit more about how track is approaching the category and to drill in a little bit more about the checkpoint, who it was built for.

So I. have I missed anything in the conversation that you'd like to add?

Not that I can think of. We're super excited about it or our customers are excited about it. It seems like it's been very well received, so we're going to keep our foot on the gas.

Yeah, I always like to start off the conversation by understanding a little bit more about you as a rider. So what's your background as a writer? I've been riding a long, long time.

It all started when I was a little kid and I became a bmx through BMX. I kinda got into road a little bit and then around age 16 to 20, sort of took a break from riding because I had a car and I got interested in chasing girls and it wasn't particularly good at that. So around 20 a I got back into riding through mountain bike and this was around 1990 and uh, I just fell hard for it and ever since then have been been somewhat of a fanatical rider, a mountain bike racer, a little bit of road, a lot more cyclocross lately. Uh, and then I've kind of gotten more into an exploration bent in the last few years through um, through gravel and, and bike packing and stuff like that.

Great. And how did you find your way to being an employee of track? Oh, interesting story.

I was actually chasing a girl and I caught her. She wanted a teaching fellowship here in Wisconsin and invited me to come along. I couldn't say no. And knowing that I'd need a job, I sent a resume to trek. I had already been in retail for some years at that time and got the job here at the time it was supposed to be a one year deal and now nearly 14 years later we are happily married and living in Madison, Wisconsin.

Perfect. And how did your role evolve? Did you start out in product management or are you doing something else at the company?

I entered the company through the sales department is an inside rep, which is the inroad for many employees here at Trek. We kind of call it the farm and then from there, we often move on to other positions. Once I decided to stay in Wisconsin, I knew I wanted to work in a product. I just didn't think there'd be anything cooler than getting a chance to actually make stuff.

Absolutely at a scale that Trek operates on, I'm sure those product decisions are really thrilling to make knowing the number of riders that you impact with any given product

For sure we reach a lot of riders, but at the same time it's stressful because the, these decisions are impactful. They're important. And your answering the needs of a very, very broad range of people and dealers and, and yeah, things have to be done carefully.

Did you find yourself more in off road model, product management or a road along the way?

I am product manager in the city bikes division and city bikes is kind of the catchall for everything else. This means bikes like fitness hybrids, leisure bikes, our electric. And then in recent years we have taken on the adventure bikes which I am solely responsible for and that includes our venerable 420 touring bike, uh, in the nine slash 2011, 20 off road touring and back bike packing bikes. And then most recently I got the opportunity to develop the Checkpoint gravel bike, which is what we're talking about today.

Yeah, that's really interesting as you described, kind of your personal interest in off road riding and mountain biking and later how like for many of us that evolved to just general adventure riding, it's interesting. Professionally I imagined to see all that come together and finally get a crack at a gravel bike on behalf of Trek.

Yeah, it's a pretty awesome responsibility and opportunity and seeing how even now at gravel seems like a very big, well established category, but it's really kind of the wild west. I mean there's still a huge variety of things and concepts being developed in ideas about how they're being used on the requests we get from our dealers and various regions about what they they'd like to see are all over the map. It's super exciting in that way.

Yeah, it's interesting that you bring that up because I personally have seen my interest in gravel come from a lot of different directions. I do like you have a pretty solid mountain biking background, but my interest in gravel really came from the more adventurous side of cycling. I started becoming really interesting in the idea of bike packing and following those ultra endurance races like the tour divide and things like that and while I only done a minimal amount of bike packing myself, I saw the appeal of it and I started to see the appeal of being less speed orientated and more adventure oriented and you know, those were some of the trends that led me to become passionate about gravel cycling. And, and to your point, as I've explored the sport more and more and talked to more and more people, it's fairly clear that the definition of what a gravel ride is means something totally different to someone in northern California versus Wisconsin versus Vermont versus Florida. So I'm curious to explore that a little bit with you as someone who is tasked with defining what the gravel category may look like and bringing all these trends together. What was that thought process like at Trek?

We try and approach things like this in a clean slate manner. So involved lots of phone interviews with our partners and dealers who had been requesting this from us. I'm readily admit we're a little late to the party, but when I embarked on the research through that and through traveling to markets where I knew a gravel was, was, and in some places almost the entire cycling market, that's what I found. I found that the spectrum was really, really broad and there wasn't a single attribute that everybody wanted a really what bubbled up from it all was that even within an individual, there is not a single gravel ride. I'm a good example is the dirty Kanza 200 is, is the granddaddy of all the gravel race events, but most of them in that area wouldn't tell you that that's the kind of riding they do all the time. They don't go out on three huge gravel centuries a week. They ride all different ways. They, they ride sometimes short and fast rides that behave much more like a road ride would, except on gravel. Uh, some of them are, are into bike packing. So it's even within an individual user, we're finding people who want to have a variety of experiences. And uh, yeah, that was, that was a big eyeopener for us.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that that is how I look at gravel and I think a lot of the people I've spoken to look at it in the same way. And to your point, I've been a Trek owner on a number of different occasions and I remember a couple of years back seeing the Boone as being the only thing sort of that fit loosely my desire in the gravel space. But it wasn't quite there yet. So I was surprised frankly that last year we didn't have a bike. Like the checkpoint come out from Trek.

Yeah. And there was a little pressure, you know, it quickly went from something we in our product department or asking to do to something that, that we really needed to do with emergency. The Boone is a great race gravel platform. But as, as I was just saying, when you look out over the spectrum of riders and how they're being used, a race, cyclocross bike just isn't quite versatile enough. It doesn't have the kinds of mounting options that riders wanted that generally doesn't have the tire clearance. And I think that's true of a lot of companies cyclocross bikes. We had this big surge in popularity in that discipline and that meant everybody just started offering a very race focused bike. But you know, in the old days a cyclocross bike was more versatile bike, wasn't it? Yup.

Absolutely. So let's talk about the Checkpoint. It's a really exciting offering from Trek in the gravel space and it sounded like, it sounds like you distilled a lot of different things into this one concept that was going to be a switchblade of sorts for a bike in your garage. Let's talk a little bit about that and, and the things that were built into it.

We have a huge toolbox, will have developed technologies and proprietary items. I'm going into it. I knew there wasn't going to be a reinvention of the wheel necessary here. We quickly distill the list of attributes and features that the riders needed. A, one of them was huge tire clearance. Another one was versatility and mounting options, and then another one was stability and that one we had to be really careful with. Um, so in looking at that we quickly realized that you didn't need much more off road capability than was offered in a world cup winning cyclocross bike. So we began with the Boones geometry. We added a little bit of comfort to it with a little bit more stack height and a little bit more bottom bracket drop. We're talking a matter of millimeters of bottom bracket, drop the clutch feature for the stability though is the stranglehold dropout. With that we were allowed to build a bike that has the same tight rear triangle is erased. Cyclocross bike but can be slid out 15 millimeters into a much longer rear end, which adds stability in that way. A rider doesn't have to choose one over the other. Uh, the bike within the short position rides really fast and lively and it's fun to ride. But then when you stretch out that rear end, it gets really stable, which is what these, uh, you know, Middle America, Kansas, Oklahoma, gravel riders really look for in a gravel path.

I know there's a number of more attributes that you're going to talk about other bike, but I'd love to drill into the Stranglehold because it's a really unique and I think from an engineering perspective of very complicated part of the bike, because the ability to move that dropout, I'm noticing that you also need to move the disc brake mount alongside of that obviously to, to line it up. It seems difficult to achieve.

Well, it's actually one of those toolbox features I mentioned. We developed that originally for the Stash, a big fat mountain bike. And then our brethren in the road group adapted it to the Crockett, a cyclocross platform, which in its own way has a little bit of a gravel bent. So the pieces for this already existed and what it entails is a couple of precision machined dropout inserts. And the one on the left side in particular is the axle directly to the brake mounts. So when you moved them, they moved together in alignment is not disrupted between the two, so it's actually a fairly easy adjustment to make and then the design of it is so robust that when it's tightened down there's no creaking, no sliding, and that was another area where they just knew they had to nail it.

Yeah, it's really interesting. For my listeners who haven't seen a picture of it, I encourage you to go check it out because I just think it's a fascinating piece of engineering there. I noticed you've also gone with that, the dropped drive side chains day and a lot of different mounts, which I think is interesting and important. Can you talk a little bit about those decisions as well?

Absolutely. So the drops stay on the drive side is about the only practical solution to address the problem of road drive trains. Gravel bikes are still designed around road drive trains, which by nature are designed around skinny tires and wheels. We wanted a great big tire. We wanted relatively short chain stays and when you start cramming all that stuff together, things start to bump into each other. So one way that we relieved that clearance is by doing the asymmetric dropped stay, which creates a little bit more tire clearance on that drive side of the tire. The mounting features, the little water bottle mounts in particular, what kind of a happy accident. The design engineer on this project, his name is Travis Brown, not the famous racer, Travis Brown. He had this idea that he wanted to be able to fit three water bottles in the front inside of the, uh, main triangle by putting an extra amount high on the main triangle and then mounting the lower bottle as low as possible. And then the bottle on the seat tube goes up. Uh, I thought it was a pretty ingenious idea, but my research had shown up. Lots and lots of writers are using frame bags and half frame bags. I said, that sounds great, but we can't have a water bottle encroaching on the bag space. And we went back and forth and back and forth. And then he quickly realized that all they had to do is poke another couple of holes in the frame, create a couple of mounting options so that seat tube bottle can be mounted in a high position or a low position and now we can accommodate both needs with a simple a movement of the bottle cages and that'll work on any of the bikes from 56 and up. The carbon bikes have the upper set of mounts on the smaller sizes and even though you can't fit a bottle there, the mount is available for, for whatever a rider would like to do. We know there's a big diy spirit among these riders out there and guys are coming up with their own solutions for things.

And then you've also got on the top, top of the frame bag and some stuff on the fork as well, right?

That's correct. The fork mount will accept the bag and rack system we developed for the light touring bike called the seven slash 20 as well as conventional front racks. We're seeing more and more of that. I think people are starting to realize that losing weight on the front of a bike for light touring adds stability and, and makes the bike a little easier to manage, handled a little bit more in a balanced manner. So we've got the mounts there. Uh, the mount on the top tube are for just, as you pointed out, a triathlons, triathletes, use these a lot. It's kind of like a good position to put your feed, you know, if you want to put energy gels or what have you. And we're seeing a kind of an ever expanding universe of, of accessories to go there as well.

Yeah, it's kind of a funny thing. I ride my bike on the road as well and I was out this morning, riding with a road riding friend of mine and he was sort of poking fun at me for having that bag there. And I said, listen, you know what? I'm riding off road. I find it really convenient to not have to reach around to my back to grab food at, you know, on the go. And I always get a little bit of crap from my roadie friends when I show up with it, but it is very, very practical.

Yeah, it's very practical. You have it there and instead of rooting around in a pocket you can't see. You can look down and see what your inventory is, how much you've eaten. The gravel events that are popping up all over the place are incredibly grueling. So any of these, any of these comfort adders or big deal to, to the riders who do this kind of riding and racing.

Yeah, absolutely. And that, you know, that's a whole other area of conversation I think is the wide variety of events that are cropping up from ultra endurance events. Like I'm dirty Kanza as you mentioned to all these different types of challenges that I think are really pushing the potential of the types of adventures you can have on these kinds of bikes, which I think is really invigorating for the sport.

It really is. And what I kind of brought back to the organization from the research is that in a lot of ways this feels very much like mountain biking. Did in the nineties, you know, there's a lot of discovery happening, there's a lot of a rider driven innovation happening.

I know there's, there's been, if you follow the chat boards, there's some people out there that, that think this is an industry driven trend and it's exactly the opposite of the rider is driving this trend and driving the innovation and the demand to create things and they are rewarding companies who make the things that they want. It's not enough for you to say that my cyclocross bike can be written on gravel. They want a product that's optimized for the experience they want to have.

Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more. Especially your analogy about a mountain biking in the early nineties. I remember that time there was a lot of innovation around equipment and as far as the racing went, I was in the mid Atlantic at that point when I saw a new race on the calendar. It was really about finding new terrain and having a camping experience and just having a good time at the event versus like a very hard core race scene. And I really enjoyed that and I absolutely see the parallels in the gravel racing scene. I think many of us are looking at events as part of our vacations and saying like, oh, it'd be great to go to Rebecca's private Idaho or the crusher and the Tuscher to do a big event, but a experience new terrain and push our equipment will work in those environments for sure.

And another aspect, and I didn't think of this at the time when mountain biking exploded, but one of the greatest about mountain biking is it gave people an opportunity to go cycling without worrying about automotive traffic. And we know that deep down that's kind of what built up gravel. It's scenic and it's rugged and it's beautiful, but in a lot of the places where this is so popular, it happens because these are the most safe roads to ride. From a traffic perspective.

Yeah, absolutely. Even here in the bay area in northern California, I love being able to ride up the dirt, climbs and then descend on the roads. I find myself able to piece together rides where I'm just interacting with so many, so less so much less traffic that the, you know, the day out there just feels safer in some ways for sure. And it's much more serene.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we've covered a little bit about the type of writer you had in mind when you conceived of the Checkpoint. It's curious and Trek lineup, because you do have bikes closely on either side of this, whether it's the Boone platform or that Domane gravel disc, who is the ideal rider for the checkpoint and what would push them either way towards a, a boone or gravel?

A Domane gravel disc. So the short answer is everybody. Checkpoint is a, is hugely popular already. I'm comparing it to a bike, like the, uh, the Domane gravel or the boon. It kind of picks up where they leave off. Those bikes are a little bit more specific. A Domane gravel has kind of an interesting genesis that we've, we've made the Domane for several years and it's one of our most successful road platforms and it has always been capable as a multisurface bike or a gravel bike. It's not quite what you'd want for something like Kansas, you know, where the gravels it's exceptionally harsh and rough, but for the gravel and crushed limestone trail and all of that stuff that, that zigzags all across the country, it's fantastic. Um, so we built a version of it with the Schwab one tire basically to demonstrate its capability. Our dealers had these bikes on their racks with a slick tire, but the lesson learned there is that it's, it's not enough to say the bike can do it. The rider comes into the store and they want to see the bike ready to do the job they want it to do. So we did that bike and we actually did it while the Checkpoint development was taking place. And then knowing that Checkpoint was going to come down the pike this spring and really answer those needs. Uh, and then as we spoke about earlier, the Boone has evolved into a full on race weapon. It is the, it's an excellent, excellent race cyclocross bike, but it lacks the mounts a, it does not have the kind of tire clearance that these riders are demanding. so we wanted to make sure we offered a package that just had it all and, and again, back to write or type one rider. We found a lot in our research was what I like to call the one hook rider. They're not all in the bike industry and they don't all have a garage full of bikes. Some people have one hook to hang a bike from and they want to choose a bike that does as much as possible if it's going to be there on the bike. Where do you start seeing the limitations of the checkpoint is? It is my one bike and I'm going out on a fast paced group road ride and I changed the tires to something more road appropriate.

What kind of shortcomings do I start to see in that model?

Really nothing more than weight. It is a little bit heavier. It's no Emondo, so you, you're not going to want to climb in the rockies is as much as you would like to on a specific lightweight bike, but that's really it. It's geared like a road bike. It's got a little bit broader range, but that's exactly what I do with mine. I have three sets of wheels with different tires on them for, for different flavors and I can get up in the morning and put a set of wheels with a 28 c road tire on in and hang with the fast group ride without any trouble. And then I can also leverage some gravel tires and do what we like to call the urban traipse where we do a sort of road ride connecting some of the local municipal mountain bike trails and whatnot. And you can do anything on it. I'm going to race it in the cross season this coming season it, it's uh, it's extremely capable. I mean it's not a hardcore single track mountain bike, but is definitely the most capable drop bar bicycle we've ever made. I think.

Yeah, I think riders are often surprised when they do invest in a, in a good quality gravel bike that it can play in a lot of different areas. I'm like, you, I, I swap out a 700 set. We'll set with slicks on it to road ride my gravel bike and yes, I feel like I'm maybe losing a little bit of performance in the climbs, but frankly it's usually my legs that are hurting me more than the bike and it does everything you needed to do and I certainly advocate for anybody out there considering buying a new bike to consider gravel bikes as something that, that can do it all.

Yeah, absolutely and as people here inside the organization and outside of have gotten the bikes, I've heard unprompted from a number of people and this is the only road bike I need, you know, if they're not hardcore road racers, they're finding that this bike will, will do anything on the road. They need a road bike to do with all of that added capability.

How do you see the category evolving for Trek? I think the reception of the bike has been super strong. It's clearly a well thought out platform and everything I've read suggests it's a great riding bike. What do you think that means for tracking the future of this category?

Well, we kind of have a script in the way we do in and create lines of bikes. I could already tell you that there's some people that say this thing is awesome. Where's the Slr, you know, and they want a bike that's two pounds lighter and, and has a much more race specific bent a product like the OPEN UP are already out there that are, that are essentially our Amanda type concept built into a gravel platform. And then I think there's gonna be some other demand for, for something that's even a little grittier, a little, you know, a little more rough and tumble, something a little closer to drop our mountain bike that, uh, maybe even accepts more tire. we're looking into all of that and, and you know, we're aware of our place in the spectrum of offerings. Most of our dealers these days carry a vast majority of their product in their stores with us, so we need to be sure that we're introducing products that work for all of them so that it's not confusing because every time you introduce a new product, your, your customers have to think, well, how long, how is this going to live in my store? How am I gonna, what am I going to put it next to? Um, so, so we'll, we'll proceed carefully with this line of bikes is really, really solid from the get go. And then from here we will, uh, we will see what we can do to, to make it even more successful.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, again, it's an extremely well thought out bike from everything you've built into it that I've seen. It looks like a great platform. I'm sure as you said, you'll get people wanting the higher end version of that bike very readily. It is curious to think about the more rugged side of that market and that's the one where I feel like there's a lot of personal preference and choice about what you intend to do. That's going to be complicated, I would imagine, as a product designer to to figure out what are the attributes of that more ruggedized spike in.

Is there a large enough market to you make it interesting for, for a company like Trek for sure, and we pondered this even in the development of Checkpoint though, one of the biggest questions that came up was do we accommodate 650B or not? And the reason in that case, the reason we chose not to is we looked at our history with mountain bikes. We've got some recent history with 27.5 wheel sizes. The market demanded that we offered lots of things that way, but the riders quickly figured out what we thought we already knew, which was that the two nine or we'll just rolls over things better. We think it's going the same way in gravel. Uh, there are some good reasons to run six slash 50 DB. But at the core of it all, we believed that it was because there just weren't good offerings in, in 700 c in the kinds of widths and treads. And that's changing rapidly. So we decided we would stay with that.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. It's been a frequent part of conversations I've had on this podcast about 650b wheels. I happen to enjoy them here in my home terrain in Marin county simply because I ride a lot of very mountain bike oriented terrain. So having that additional tire volume really make sense for me, but I'm the first to acknowledge that in other territories they wouldn't make sense whatsoever and particularly if you were a less aggressive ride or potentially than I am on the mountain bike style stuff. It really doesn't make a lot of sense.

Yeah, it's definitely got some benefits. Another issue with large diameter wheels is you add the wheel, then you add the tire and all of a sudden, like we talked about with the drops state, thanks. Start bumping into each other. So making really small bikes is a bigger challenge. Gear range. For instance, when you go to a much larger tire, you're actually having an effect on your final drive. So thankfully a Shimano has come out with some broader cassettes and I think we'll continue to see that happen, you know, it's, it's driven not just by gravel but by road people are always looking for better climbing gears. Uh, but yeah, in the here and now, what we're seeing now is his tire companies are taking the risks and they're making a really good assortments of off road capable gravel tires and 700 seat. I'm like, we rate the bike to fit a 45. We put a 45 generously. So there's, there's a lot of stuff you can do out there now. Yeah. And I'm actually interested in Shimano as new clutch derailleurs for the roads, like the gravel side because I think that's going to make a big difference when you're running a multiple chain rings in, in chain slap, etc.

Sure, sure. And in my opinion, that'S been a long time coming. I've, I've seen the value of it for a long time. When I started racing cyclocross several years ago, I even hacked a mountain bike derailleurs. It's ram system together because I saw the value of a clutch derailleurs for chain management. They're A. I think that's going to. I think that's going to be a big one. You know, it's going to help chain management. A broader good ranges are going to be easier to manage with something like that. yeah, I think that makes a ton of sense.

David, I wanted to thank you for the conversation. I really learned a lot. It was great to understand a little bit more about how track is approaching the category and to drill in a little bit more about the checkpoint, who it was built for.

So I. have I missed anything in the conversation that you'd like to add?

Not that I can think of. We're super excited about it or our customers are excited about it. It seems like it's been very well received, so we're going to keep our foot on the gas.

Well, that's awesome.

I appreciate the time. Hey, thanks so much for having me.

]]>31:28cleanTrek Bicycles' Gravel Product Manager, David Studner, talks about the Trek Checkpoint gravel bike, its inspiration and its future. fullDave Malwitz Gravelstoke: Talking Gravel and the magic of the communityDave Malwitz, founder Gravelstoke, talks about all things gravel and the community behind itMon, 28 May 2018 10:30:00 +0000Episode Links:

All right folks, this is an exciting day at the gravel ride podcast. I've got a really a meeting of the minds of two west coast gravel empires here. We've got Dave Malwitz from Gravelstoke out of San Diego and yours truly, Craig Dalton from The Gravel Ride out of Marin County, California.

So Dave, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, absolutely good connect. Yeah, that's fun. I mean we connected over instagram I guess originally and I think we both started our kind gonna respective gravel empires, if you will, around the same time in January this year. Yeah, I think we're taking over basically the whole west coast gravel scene basically at this point. Yeah. Let's start every, every podcast by asking Kinda how you got into the sport of gravel bed. Start with more of a mountain bike or road background.

My background really started more mountain biking, got my first mountain bike probably in college, so did mostly mountain biking. Got My first road bike when I moved to California, moved to Thousand Oaks area, which is kinda between LA and Santa Barbara, which has a really good road biking scene with the Santa Monica Mountains. So I lived there two years, had like an old Trek bike, but it was really great for just what I was doing. Then it was about, that was kind of ready for a new, a new road bike. And that was 12. Yeah, because I moved to San Diego so it was kind of more interested in like a cyclocross bike at the time, but I wasn't too keen on getting something with like a rim brake because a lot of the bikes at the time I think still had the caliber caliber caliper brakes. Pretty much it was right around then that companies were starting to make gravel bikes. Um, and I think I got that my diverge. So that was the bike ended up getting in like 2014.

Was there something about San Diego County that screamed like, Hey, I can get off road on one of these bikes.

So I was doing mountain biking and then I was with my road bike, I still had, I was commuting with a 15 mile commute. It's a little bit much to do mountain biking, but I still, you know, mainly what my interest was to trails. So I kinda liked the idea of getting a, a road bike that had capability of doing something more interesting to make my ride, you know, my commute more fun. Plus like I had no problem at the time. I remember like having a disc brake was kind of weird. Like I think some people are still like, oh that's weird, that's not cool. And even like bigger tires, like the skinnier the tire you had, the cooler you or something, you know, I'm not a a roadie by any means. The kind of what I was picking up on. But for me I just was interested in having a good time on a bike and it made total sense to me to do disc with something with bigger tires. So I ended up getting the diverge, which was the best gravel bike really at the time. A lot of the other ones were kind of weird looking, something was kind of off about them. So that's still the bike I have today.

So it sounds like just getting into that bike and making that choice was what opened up just a ton of different terrain for in a lot of different writing. Yeah. So that was,

but two or three. Yeah, three plus years ago now. Even at the time I really didn't know what it was capable of doing. I mean that's, I mean even more recent until recently is when I'm really starting to explore what these bikes can do and the types of rides you can do. Um, so what I find super interesting is the, the rides that we're doing in San Diego, North county right now, you really have to have a gravel bike, uh, to do these rides. I mean there's occasionally somebody comes out with a hardtail mountain bike. You could even do it on road bike, but really the gravel bike really hits that sweet spot where, you know, if we're doing half road or even, you know, something like 20 percent road or something, you really want to have something that can keep up on those roads sections and then, you know, have a good time on dirt.

So you got to sample a little bit of Marin County riding with me today and I was explaining how we have a lot of ups and downs here and not a lot of flat dirt roads. How does it compare to what you normally ride in the North County?

Well, first of all do. That was fun. Really Fun ride. I had no idea you guys had that much dirt. That was really nice in this area. Uh, I've done, uh, just one other ride in Marin and that was with, you know, road ride, which is a lot of fun, but it just seemed like today. I mean it was everywhere you looked. There was a different like dirt road somewhere that you could explore and there's like nobody out here, so. Yeah, this is sweet. You're lucky to have this.

Yeah, I'm glad you liked it. I mean I, I feel really blessed that we can live together a lot of contiguous dirt and not actually have to hit the road so we can stay off road plenty of times. And then when you do add the road component to it, that's when I find you can really extend out that both the duration and the riding distance and the types of terrain you can get to around here because if we, if we use some of the roads to get further north towards Fairfax and up that direction, a little bit more rugged trails that we could get on. Um, but you can literally connect them all right from my door, which was, which is a hell of a lot of fun.

Yeah. It's super nice to be able to just use the road to your advantage if you want to explore a different area.

Yeah. So finding that bike and sort of tackling that terrain and then fast forward a couple of years you decided to start gravel stoke and cover the industry and really start to provide both a resource for people investigating sport, but also creating opportunities for group rides down in San Diego. I mean that's a real service to the industry. What made you decide to kind of go that route and start bringing people together?

I've kind of been watching what's been happening with gravel obviously. I mean, you know, myself and a lot of my friends, we really enjoy those rides and a lot of what exists right now currently, as you know, there's obviously the equipment side and then there's the events. We just had the Belgian waffle ride, which isn't really technically a gravel grinder by any means. I mean it's mostly road, uh, but a fair amount of challenging dirt. Yeah. So ice kind of saw an opportunity to create something from my perspective as a consumer and someone who consumes a lot of, you know, media, whether it's blogs or podcasts like yours. Great job. By the way, really enjoying what you're doing. I basically created something that was, uh, something that I would want to go visit and be a part of a.

So fortunately, you know, I've been creating something that people are attracted to and it's resonating with people and it wasn't even really that I was targeting San Diego. In fact, my intention wasn't actually to be a local thing at all. I wanted to just kind of start capturing products and, you know, different goods, whether it's bikes or, or events that are existing out there and kind of consolidate and bring it into one platform. Uh, you know, a blog and a website where we could share what we knew about what was happening in the industry and around, around the events in one place. So that was kind of my intention and building it. And from there started started creating some local gravel rides, which it really, at the time there was nothing that existed. Uh, obviously there's the gravel events. We've got a, the BW already mentioned. And then also there's a spandex series that. And so there's some really good events, uh, around, around gravel. And then there's a fair amount of bike industry also in our area.

Yeah. I think you come from a similar orientation to me where, you know, my thought behind the gravel ride podcasts was really that I went through such an interesting journey trying to figure out what the right bike was for me, what the type of writing would be. I was always looking for new events and finding people who are capturing those events like gravel stoke, just as a destination so I can discover new things and while I'm not down in San Diego like I now have on my radar these events because of your coverage that hey, like I do a family trip down there and try to squeeze in a Belgian waffle ride or some of these other events. So I mean I appreciate that mentality. And like you, I think I've just kind of taken us from a grassroots level and from almost from outside the industry and focus on what's it like to be a writer. What kind of equipment do you need? What events will be fun to do? Because gravel to me is really less so about pure racing as in coming in first place and more about how do I get out there and do some interesting terrain, have a blast with people in the dirt and ideally have some beers and tacos afterwards.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what's so great about it. I mean, it's the people that come out to, to our rides there maybe roadies, they may be mountain bikers, you know, we just did our a ride this past Sunday. I got home, you know, through I think, uh, some posts posts up on instagram and my wife was like, Hey, that, that looks really fun. She was like asking me about like gravel riding and if it's something like she could do and that's never. She's never asked her really been interested in, in writing before. But I think there's something about gravel that just kind of, and maybe it's to kind of what I'm trying to cultivate is a little bit more open and welcoming, you know, there's, there's no, we're not excluding any anybody, uh, we just, you know, it's all about just getting people on bikes. And having a good time.

Yeah, the early days of any new sector of the sport. It's always pioneers and misfits and it's a really a great moment. I mean, I recall sort of back in the earlier days of mountain biking where, you know, whenever you'd go to a race, everybody was camping, everybody was waking up groggy and I'm having slept on the ground and then you just go out and race and have fun and then enjoy a picnic afterwards. And then, you know, fast forward a decade into norbet nationals and the off road series. And it became a real serious affair. And you would see people warming up on turbo trainers and uh, you know, getting to the start line half an hour before the race began to get the pole position. And frankly for me, I started losing interest in that effort and part of it might be self fulfilling and that I wasn't coming in first place. But the other part of me, it was just like, Hey, I've always been out here just for the adventure of the ride. And I think the gravel community right now is very squarely in that place where sure there's always, anytime you get a get a group of guys and girls together, someone's going to want to win. But at the end of the day, I think the vast majority of people who show up for gravel events, even the gravel quote unquote races are much more chill and just about having a good time out there.

Yeah. Do you think that gravel will have bench eventually there will be more of race focus because right now it's kind of just these one off unique events happening, popping up all over the place and there's no, there's no formal, you know, really no formal racing. There's no teams really involved. It's, it's just, it's more of a kind of casual, fun events people are doing. Do you think it'll go more towards racing?

I do actually. And I'm using. If history can be my only guide, I think it's inevitable that part of the sport will go that way. I do think that gravel is fortunate that most of us look at it as a very broad category from, you know, whether it's including the bike packing set all the way to the racing set is a pretty wide spectrum and the beauty of the types of bikes we're buying is that they're super versatile. But I do think, you know, we've already started to see it that these gravel events are starting to attract, you know, former pros that still retained sponsors. As the events get bigger and bigger and prize money and prestige gets involved, you know, you do. You are going to start to see those trends. I do think the nature of the way these courses are typically designed will always, and I'd knock on wood on this will always lend itself to just an adventurous day out there. So while there will be racing at the front end, I think you can still line up on the starting line with, you know, seeing the pros they had of you and not really sweating it and just kind of enjoying that mid pack outing however you end up.

Yeah. If I could counter that because I, I don't know, maybe it's my own desire that it doesn't go that direction, but uh, you know, I mean I don't have a race background so you know, that's kind of maybe part of my perspective, but I think the maybe road racing and mountain biking, it's like, you know, company in the industry and by companies can very much like, you know, dial in what, what is the perfect equipment for that race. And a lot of the bikes ended up looking pretty similar. Whereas for gravel, all these events are. I mean the terrain right is, is so unique and different and everybody out there has a very different bike. I mean, for each event you would have to have almost a different bike, right? Depending on what the terrain is. I mean the Bwr we just did, the guy's winning it are on pretty much standard race bikes with maybe 25, c, 28 c at the most tires.

They're not even really gravel bikes and that's what the pros are really winning on. That's one end of it. And then you have events like grinder or what I've heard is it's, it's pretty gnarly, you know, you're almost better off with a mountain bike than something like a road bike tires. Absolutely. So the range of events out there doesn't really lend itself, I think to the industry creating like, you know, the ultimate gravel bike. I mean you see it now like there's at this Sea Otter, I saw pictures of this, you know, nine or full suspension, gravel bike, you know, to me that's kind of crazy, right? I mean you're swinging all the way to that end and then you have things that are much more, you know, conservative.

Yeah. Well I, I plant well taken about the type of equipment that's going to be ideal for every race cars. Absolutely. You could, you could spend a lot of time and spend a lot of money on a quilting and your bike specific for the terrain you're on. You know, when we were out riding I was talking about my personal choice to have 6:50 be wheels with the [inaudible] tire. And that comes because in my backyard I arrived very mountain bike. He ask terrain, but if I was out in the Midwest and doing long flowy gravel road miles, I would definitely be on a narrower tire and more likely on a $700. See, we'll set. So I guess the counter argument is it's great for the bike industry, cause a gear geeks will have plenty of things to spend money on, but uh, I guess we'll see over time which direction it goes in at the end of the day. I think there's room for all types of events. Most of the event organizers I talked to are very much a shooing the pure racing mentality and really looking to create events that are more in the grand fondo fashion where they're just fun for everybody from beginning to end. Yeah. So what's, what's next for you this year? Do you have any other events on the horizon? Yes,

I've been trying to, you know, create some maybe more, you know, unique, fun events. So I have one coming up on June third so that, that is a gravel hunt event I'm working on and that's, it's called a hunt of the north. So it's kind of a take on, you know, play on hell of the north, but uh, it's going to be a gravel haunt in north county. Okay. And Yeah, we're gonna literally hunt some gravel, so I'm gonna see how to maybe paint these pieces of gravel and then find some different locations on dirt around North County and place them in, in these locations and just put a bunch of gravel that's painted on the ground and people have to go to each location, uh, any, any, any way they choose and pick up, pick up some gravel. So, and I've, I've got a lot of pretty awesome sponsors on board that are just excited about what we're doing and getting involved.

So got pretty sweet prizes, raffle prizes from companies like Wolf Tooth to Science and Sport is supporting us on a nutrition side. A Leo is helping out with some of the promotion and artwork. A bad seat. Coffee's going to be there given out nitro cold brew. So it should be a fun event. Nice. And what's the best way for people to follow what you're doing? So yeah, our website is a gravel stoke.com and then instagram and facebook, it's at gravel stoke. So pretty easy. Okay. And so for that June third, the event? Yeah, June third. So I'm hoping this week get the registration app so I don't know when you're publishing this but it'll probably be already be up there at the time.

Great. Well I'll include a link in the show notes to that and also to your instagram and facebook and the website and uh, I appreciate you stopping by. It was great to go out and peddle hats off to you for, for those of you who don't know and I don't know how you would but for Dave road, this entire ride on a road bike and although I did try to choose some terrain that would be a little easier on him. He didn't want one hell of a job on that on one particular trail. Uh, I was really impressed that a didn't go down and be, you didn't flat. So thanks for joining us. Stop by anytime. We've got lots more miles to cover together next time you're up here.

Sweet. Yeah, I think I was gone pretty quick because I knew you were on my tail, so like that definitely is motivation to get down the mountain, so yeah, appreciate it man. Great to connect and let's do it again. Yeah, safe travels back down to San Diego. Thanks. Yeah, right on.

All right folks, this is an exciting day at the gravel ride podcast. I've got a really a meeting of the minds of two west coast gravel empires here. We've got Dave Malwitz from Gravelstoke out of San Diego and yours truly, Craig Dalton from The Gravel Ride out of Marin County, California.

So Dave, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, absolutely good connect. Yeah, that's fun. I mean we connected over instagram I guess originally and I think we both started our kind gonna respective gravel empires, if you will, around the same time in January this year. Yeah, I think we're taking over basically the whole west coast gravel scene basically at this point. Yeah. Let's start every, every podcast by asking Kinda how you got into the sport of gravel bed. Start with more of a mountain bike or road background.

My background really started more mountain biking, got my first mountain bike probably in college, so did mostly mountain biking. Got My first road bike when I moved to California, moved to Thousand Oaks area, which is kinda between LA and Santa Barbara, which has a really good road biking scene with the Santa Monica Mountains. So I lived there two years, had like an old Trek bike, but it was really great for just what I was doing. Then it was about, that was kind of ready for a new, a new road bike. And that was 12. Yeah, because I moved to San Diego so it was kind of more interested in like a cyclocross bike at the time, but I wasn't too keen on getting something with like a rim brake because a lot of the bikes at the time I think still had the caliber caliber caliper brakes. Pretty much it was right around then that companies were starting to make gravel bikes. Um, and I think I got that my diverge. So that was the bike ended up getting in like 2014.

Was there something about San Diego County that screamed like, Hey, I can get off road on one of these bikes.

So I was doing mountain biking and then I was with my road bike, I still had, I was commuting with a 15 mile commute. It's a little bit much to do mountain biking, but I still, you know, mainly what my interest was to trails. So I kinda liked the idea of getting a, a road bike that had capability of doing something more interesting to make my ride, you know, my commute more fun. Plus like I had no problem at the time. I remember like having a disc brake was kind of weird. Like I think some people are still like, oh that's weird, that's not cool. And even like bigger tires, like the skinnier the tire you had, the cooler you or something, you know, I'm not a a roadie by any means. The kind of what I was picking up on. But for me I just was interested in having a good time on a bike and it made total sense to me to do disc with something with bigger tires. So I ended up getting the diverge, which was the best gravel bike really at the time. A lot of the other ones were kind of weird looking, something was kind of off about them. So that's still the bike I have today.

So it sounds like just getting into that bike and making that choice was what opened up just a ton of different terrain for in a lot of different writing. Yeah. So that was,

but two or three. Yeah, three plus years ago now. Even at the time I really didn't know what it was capable of doing. I mean that's, I mean even more recent until recently is when I'm really starting to explore what these bikes can do and the types of rides you can do. Um, so what I find super interesting is the, the rides that we're doing in San Diego, North county right now, you really have to have a gravel bike, uh, to do these rides. I mean there's occasionally somebody comes out with a hardtail mountain bike. You could even do it on road bike, but really the gravel bike really hits that sweet spot where, you know, if we're doing half road or even, you know, something like 20 percent road or something, you really want to have something that can keep up on those roads sections and then, you know, have a good time on dirt.

So you got to sample a little bit of Marin County riding with me today and I was explaining how we have a lot of ups and downs here and not a lot of flat dirt roads. How does it compare to what you normally ride in the North County?

Well, first of all do. That was fun. Really Fun ride. I had no idea you guys had that much dirt. That was really nice in this area. Uh, I've done, uh, just one other ride in Marin and that was with, you know, road ride, which is a lot of fun, but it just seemed like today. I mean it was everywhere you looked. There was a different like dirt road somewhere that you could explore and there's like nobody out here, so. Yeah, this is sweet. You're lucky to have this.

Yeah, I'm glad you liked it. I mean I, I feel really blessed that we can live together a lot of contiguous dirt and not actually have to hit the road so we can stay off road plenty of times. And then when you do add the road component to it, that's when I find you can really extend out that both the duration and the riding distance and the types of terrain you can get to around here because if we, if we use some of the roads to get further north towards Fairfax and up that direction, a little bit more rugged trails that we could get on. Um, but you can literally connect them all right from my door, which was, which is a hell of a lot of fun.

Yeah. It's super nice to be able to just use the road to your advantage if you want to explore a different area.

Yeah. So finding that bike and sort of tackling that terrain and then fast forward a couple of years you decided to start gravel stoke and cover the industry and really start to provide both a resource for people investigating sport, but also creating opportunities for group rides down in San Diego. I mean that's a real service to the industry. What made you decide to kind of go that route and start bringing people together?

I've kind of been watching what's been happening with gravel obviously. I mean, you know, myself and a lot of my friends, we really enjoy those rides and a lot of what exists right now currently, as you know, there's obviously the equipment side and then there's the events. We just had the Belgian waffle ride, which isn't really technically a gravel grinder by any means. I mean it's mostly road, uh, but a fair amount of challenging dirt. Yeah. So ice kind of saw an opportunity to create something from my perspective as a consumer and someone who consumes a lot of, you know, media, whether it's blogs or podcasts like yours. Great job. By the way, really enjoying what you're doing. I basically created something that was, uh, something that I would want to go visit and be a part of a.

So fortunately, you know, I've been creating something that people are attracted to and it's resonating with people and it wasn't even really that I was targeting San Diego. In fact, my intention wasn't actually to be a local thing at all. I wanted to just kind of start capturing products and, you know, different goods, whether it's bikes or, or events that are existing out there and kind of consolidate and bring it into one platform. Uh, you know, a blog and a website where we could share what we knew about what was happening in the industry and around, around the events in one place. So that was kind of my intention and building it. And from there started started creating some local gravel rides, which it really, at the time there was nothing that existed. Uh, obviously there's the gravel events. We've got a, the BW already mentioned. And then also there's a spandex series that. And so there's some really good events, uh, around, around gravel. And then there's a fair amount of bike industry also in our area.

Yeah. I think you come from a similar orientation to me where, you know, my thought behind the gravel ride podcasts was really that I went through such an interesting journey trying to figure out what the right bike was for me, what the type of writing would be. I was always looking for new events and finding people who are capturing those events like gravel stoke, just as a destination so I can discover new things and while I'm not down in San Diego like I now have on my radar these events because of your coverage that hey, like I do a family trip down there and try to squeeze in a Belgian waffle ride or some of these other events. So I mean I appreciate that mentality. And like you, I think I've just kind of taken us from a grassroots level and from almost from outside the industry and focus on what's it like to be a writer. What kind of equipment do you need? What events will be fun to do? Because gravel to me is really less so about pure racing as in coming in first place and more about how do I get out there and do some interesting terrain, have a blast with people in the dirt and ideally have some beers and tacos afterwards.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what's so great about it. I mean, it's the people that come out to, to our rides there maybe roadies, they may be mountain bikers, you know, we just did our a ride this past Sunday. I got home, you know, through I think, uh, some posts posts up on instagram and my wife was like, Hey, that, that looks really fun. She was like asking me about like gravel riding and if it's something like she could do and that's never. She's never asked her really been interested in, in writing before. But I think there's something about gravel that just kind of, and maybe it's to kind of what I'm trying to cultivate is a little bit more open and welcoming, you know, there's, there's no, we're not excluding any anybody, uh, we just, you know, it's all about just getting people on bikes. And having a good time.

Yeah, the early days of any new sector of the sport. It's always pioneers and misfits and it's a really a great moment. I mean, I recall sort of back in the earlier days of mountain biking where, you know, whenever you'd go to a race, everybody was camping, everybody was waking up groggy and I'm having slept on the ground and then you just go out and race and have fun and then enjoy a picnic afterwards. And then, you know, fast forward a decade into norbet nationals and the off road series. And it became a real serious affair. And you would see people warming up on turbo trainers and uh, you know, getting to the start line half an hour before the race began to get the pole position. And frankly for me, I started losing interest in that effort and part of it might be self fulfilling and that I wasn't coming in first place. But the other part of me, it was just like, Hey, I've always been out here just for the adventure of the ride. And I think the gravel community right now is very squarely in that place where sure there's always, anytime you get a get a group of guys and girls together, someone's going to want to win. But at the end of the day, I think the vast majority of people who show up for gravel events, even the gravel quote unquote races are much more chill and just about having a good time out there.

Yeah. Do you think that gravel will have bench eventually there will be more of race focus because right now it's kind of just these one off unique events happening, popping up all over the place and there's no, there's no formal, you know, really no formal racing. There's no teams really involved. It's, it's just, it's more of a kind of casual, fun events people are doing. Do you think it'll go more towards racing?

I do actually. And I'm using. If history can be my only guide, I think it's inevitable that part of the sport will go that way. I do think that gravel is fortunate that most of us look at it as a very broad category from, you know, whether it's including the bike packing set all the way to the racing set is a pretty wide spectrum and the beauty of the types of bikes we're buying is that they're super versatile. But I do think, you know, we've already started to see it that these gravel events are starting to attract, you know, former pros that still retained sponsors. As the events get bigger and bigger and prize money and prestige gets involved, you know, you do. You are going to start to see those trends. I do think the nature of the way these courses are typically designed will always, and I'd knock on wood on this will always lend itself to just an adventurous day out there. So while there will be racing at the front end, I think you can still line up on the starting line with, you know, seeing the pros they had of you and not really sweating it and just kind of enjoying that mid pack outing however you end up.

Yeah. If I could counter that because I, I don't know, maybe it's my own desire that it doesn't go that direction, but uh, you know, I mean I don't have a race background so you know, that's kind of maybe part of my perspective, but I think the maybe road racing and mountain biking, it's like, you know, company in the industry and by companies can very much like, you know, dial in what, what is the perfect equipment for that race. And a lot of the bikes ended up looking pretty similar. Whereas for gravel, all these events are. I mean the terrain right is, is so unique and different and everybody out there has a very different bike. I mean, for each event you would have to have almost a different bike, right? Depending on what the terrain is. I mean the Bwr we just did, the guy's winning it are on pretty much standard race bikes with maybe 25, c, 28 c at the most tires.

They're not even really gravel bikes and that's what the pros are really winning on. That's one end of it. And then you have events like grinder or what I've heard is it's, it's pretty gnarly, you know, you're almost better off with a mountain bike than something like a road bike tires. Absolutely. So the range of events out there doesn't really lend itself, I think to the industry creating like, you know, the ultimate gravel bike. I mean you see it now like there's at this Sea Otter, I saw pictures of this, you know, nine or full suspension, gravel bike, you know, to me that's kind of crazy, right? I mean you're swinging all the way to that end and then you have things that are much more, you know, conservative.

Yeah. Well I, I plant well taken about the type of equipment that's going to be ideal for every race cars. Absolutely. You could, you could spend a lot of time and spend a lot of money on a quilting and your bike specific for the terrain you're on. You know, when we were out riding I was talking about my personal choice to have 6:50 be wheels with the [inaudible] tire. And that comes because in my backyard I arrived very mountain bike. He ask terrain, but if I was out in the Midwest and doing long flowy gravel road miles, I would definitely be on a narrower tire and more likely on a $700. See, we'll set. So I guess the counter argument is it's great for the bike industry, cause a gear geeks will have plenty of things to spend money on, but uh, I guess we'll see over time which direction it goes in at the end of the day. I think there's room for all types of events. Most of the event organizers I talked to are very much a shooing the pure racing mentality and really looking to create events that are more in the grand fondo fashion where they're just fun for everybody from beginning to end. Yeah. So what's, what's next for you this year? Do you have any other events on the horizon? Yes,

I've been trying to, you know, create some maybe more, you know, unique, fun events. So I have one coming up on June third so that, that is a gravel hunt event I'm working on and that's, it's called a hunt of the north. So it's kind of a take on, you know, play on hell of the north, but uh, it's going to be a gravel haunt in north county. Okay. And Yeah, we're gonna literally hunt some gravel, so I'm gonna see how to maybe paint these pieces of gravel and then find some different locations on dirt around North County and place them in, in these locations and just put a bunch of gravel that's painted on the ground and people have to go to each location, uh, any, any, any way they choose and pick up, pick up some gravel. So, and I've, I've got a lot of pretty awesome sponsors on board that are just excited about what we're doing and getting involved.

So got pretty sweet prizes, raffle prizes from companies like Wolf Tooth to Science and Sport is supporting us on a nutrition side. A Leo is helping out with some of the promotion and artwork. A bad seat. Coffee's going to be there given out nitro cold brew. So it should be a fun event. Nice. And what's the best way for people to follow what you're doing? So yeah, our website is a gravel stoke.com and then instagram and facebook, it's at gravel stoke. So pretty easy. Okay. And so for that June third, the event? Yeah, June third. So I'm hoping this week get the registration app so I don't know when you're publishing this but it'll probably be already be up there at the time.

Great. Well I'll include a link in the show notes to that and also to your instagram and facebook and the website and uh, I appreciate you stopping by. It was great to go out and peddle hats off to you for, for those of you who don't know and I don't know how you would but for Dave road, this entire ride on a road bike and although I did try to choose some terrain that would be a little easier on him. He didn't want one hell of a job on that on one particular trail. Uh, I was really impressed that a didn't go down and be, you didn't flat. So thanks for joining us. Stop by anytime. We've got lots more miles to cover together next time you're up here.

Sweet. Yeah, I think I was gone pretty quick because I knew you were on my tail, so like that definitely is motivation to get down the mountain, so yeah, appreciate it man. Great to connect and let's do it again. Yeah, safe travels back down to San Diego. Thanks. Yeah, right on.

This week on the Pod we've got Chris Reed from studio Valla bike shop in mill valley, California. We're actually recording in the shop today, so I just walked across this beautiful showroom, looked at some moots, looked at some parleys, some independent fabrication's, a lot of great bike sitting around. So Chris, thanks for having us tonight. Thanks for. Thanks for coming over. Really excited. Can you tell us a little bit about the background of Studio Velo? Sure. Uh, it's actually, it's a pretty cool story compared, I think to what you see with a lot of bike shops. It actually started as mobile bike repair, uh, about 13 years ago from one of my partners who got into it as a, he was trying to figure out how to make money while he was trying to run a wine and olive oil importing business and uh, had done a stint in Europe at a bike shop while he was taking his mba in Spain and started bringing some of that back here where he was working on relationships with olive oil and wine companies and trying to build a little bit of a mobile bike repair business as well too.

So it was literally on the side of the bike path, lubing by chains handing out business cards, really building it from the ground up. So I mean this bike shop was started with a $10,000 credit card limit over the course of the last 13 years. We've really grown and evolved it from a service bike repair service business into what we are today, which is much more of a retail experience for clients as well too. So with a heavy service component, but a much different much different business model for sure. So, and this location downtown, Mill Valley is the second location that you had technically the third location. The first location was in Tam junction really behind the supermarket. So it's hard to see now. And then about a little over five years ago we moved into this location. Well this is a great spot to set the scene for everybody.

We're right downtown in mill valley. So a lot of group rides me just around the corner near the depot. A perfect location and lots of places to grab food after you come shopping for bikes. Yeah. And we are. We absolutely love this location and I think it's pretty interesting. We lead a lot of trips to Europe and some great places around the world and one of the things we always love to seek out are these great little towns at the base of these mountains where you can grab a great coffee. And the reality is that's essentially what we have here. And we come back from these trips and we do some of our local rides and finish the ride back here and look out the door and we're at the base of a mountain under the redwoods and a beautiful part of the world. It's, it's, it's a pretty great spot for cycling.

So yeah, I think that's actually a good pro tip for our listeners out of town to make sure to put mill valley on a, on their bucket list of places to ride out of. And I know you will get into some of the shop rides you guys do locally here, but there's plenty of trails, plenty of gravel riding right outside our door. Absolutely. So how about you Chris? What's your cycling background? My cycling background is, it's long in the sense that I've been doing as, as long as I can remember. I mean I started walking early and was on a bike pretty, pretty, pretty quick thereafter. Um, I lived in Holland for a couple of years when I was five, six years old and rode everywhere. There was well on my way before that. The town I grew up in, uh, in Massachusetts is pretty small farm town and anywhere, anytime you wanted to get anywhere you had to do it on a bike.

So I was on a bike for from an early age. I'm not necessarily drawn to racing, just riding. Um, so it's, it's always been something I've loved doing. I moved out to San Francisco after college and, uh, got more into road riding at that point. I'd only really been more into mountain biking before that. It's, it's been, it's funny. I think a lot of people who start off mountain biking think they'll never get into road riding. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it, really took to that. Still Rode my mountain bike a lot. And then this whole gravel phenomenon that's really emerged in the last few years, um, I did a lot of road riding and my road bike on the dirt leading up to that and didn't really have the right equipment for it and definitely beat up a lot of road bike equipment and just really got into cycling for a love of writing, not necessarily from a racing standpoint.

So, uh, I've been riding bikes for a long time, but uh, but not necessarily at the, at the highest level of competition. I think there's a lot of commonality in what you've been saying about mountain biking and road biking and appreciating both as unique disciplines in the sport and, you know, I think we share that, that gravel is its own unique discipline at that point. And the equipment that's emerged over the last couple of years is really enabling the type of adventurous writing that is. It's, it's great for the soul in my mind just to get out there in the woods and away from the traffic. Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more. I think that's, um, I think that's absolutely right. And I think as this area in particular starts to get packed with more people in cars, it's, you see more people gravitating towards riding their bikes in different areas that our main roads, we've got great infrastructure for roads as far as getting access to a phenomenal landscapes and scenery.

But the reality is there's more people than maybe the roads can support. And so, uh, it's great to take advantage of the vast network of trails that we have and I think what we have here isn't necessarily the traditional gravel riding terrain, but we've got an unbelievable mix of off road terrain and, and road that you can link together to put together world class rides. Uh, it's, it's super unique. That's so true. I'm excited to get into a little gravel bike, one one-on-one one tonight because I've got a lot of listeners who have kind of pinged me on social channels just saying, hey craig, how would you define gravel riding? So as a shop owner, curious to hear when you thought the gravel biking seem really started to emerge from your brand partners that you're working with. Yeah, no, know that that's a great question.

And I think it's, it's definitely the most challenging category that we work with because it's not clearly defined. I think road riding is probably the most easily defined. There's a few subcategories there. I think on the mountain bike side, a lot has changed in the last few years with geometry of bikes and and capability of bikes. But I think it's a little bit easier to classify and on the global side of things, um, I think it's really pretty interesting because there's so much that's changed so quickly. Uh, and I think that it's really benefited from a lot of the advancements in technology and materials. Um, I think manufacturers took a stab at it probably about five years ago and it was cross bikes that would maybe start to clear slightly wider tire. But I think there was a lot of people riding cross bikes, um, in, in non cross bike specific ways, meaning that it wasn't.

They were using it for non race riding. And I think um, as disparate became the go goto on mountain bikes, people realize pretty quickly how inferior breaking of cantilever bridge was. And I think started putting pressure on the industry to make some changes. And I think putting disc brakes on I'm cross bikes was, was one of the first things that I think got more people excited about riding cross bikes off road. And it's funny, one of the first manufacturers that we worked with, Cathy, we actually built cross bikes with disc brakes. There were cable actuated districts, but bamboo cross bikes, uh, 10 years ago. I'm actually almost 11 years ago now, so it's been around I think longer than people really tend to think, but I don't think it was at the forefront of the industry. And I think the industry can be slow to embrace some changes.

29er for example. It took the industry a really long time to get behind that. Um, I think it took two years maybe for Fox to start making suspension forks it to. Same thing for maverick to start making wheels. So there was a push from the consumer side, but it took the industry a little bit longer to adapt to it. Six 50 be 27, five wheels started to come. Uh, I think the industry accepted that change more quickly and it happened almost overnight. Gravel riding was a little bit slower, but we're now in the point where it's changing quickly and there's a lot of changes and a lot of different areas. Um, so it's, it's, it's pretty unique right now. So if I come through the door as a customer and I'm looking at a drop bar, road bike, and a drop bar, gravel bike to the layman, they look quite similar.

Maybe the, I noticed the knobby tires versus the slick tires. Sure. Well what's going on under the hood? What's the differences in the geometry or the positioning or some of the components that I really should be thinking about when looking at a gravel bike share? Yeah. No, it's a great question. I think for us, we always wanted to start with figuring out what are you going to use the bike most for because I think for a lot of people that you can use a gravel bike as a road bike and then a lot of people that really want to focus more on road riding, on gravel bikes, not going to be quite the right setup. You can get a lot of the performance that you get from a road bike, but maybe not that last 10 percent, um, which a lot of people are after as well too.

So if you're looking at differences between them in terms of geometries, you'll see stuff like the head tube angle on a gravel bike will be a little bit more relaxed than, than um, a road bike. You'll, that'll give you a little bit more stability on the downhill is a little bit more clearance for running a bigger tire. So you're gonna have less pto overlap. Um, you're going to see, uh, the change stays being a little bit longer and that'll help clear the, the bigger tires in the back as well too. And I think we're seeing as the gravel market really changes and emerges changes, uh, a few different gravel offerings from different companies. One of the things that we've really seen a lot of is the, the interest in going wider and wider with tires. When we first started looking at it four or five years ago, 30 2:30 3:34 more traditional size tires were, were more acceptable.

And now what we're seeing is a lot of people are wanting 36, 38, 40, even 45 mile tires in the roster, seeing a lot more offerings from tire manufacturers. So you can get a tire that really handles a lot better in the dirt and so rose role is pretty good on the road without much sacrifice. So we're seeing a little bit more interested in, in wider tires for mixed terrain use, where before we didn't have quite that same ability to explore that. Do you think those wider tires are a local phenomenon? You mentioned earlier and obviously I ride out of this area as well, that the stuff we take our gravel bikes on is they're effectively mountain bike trails to a large degree versus someone in the Midwest that might be looking at just long flattish fire roads. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good question.

Um, and I, I think tire selection, I think anyone who's into mountain bike and I'll tell you, tire selection is, is very unique for, for each area. I mean hadn't written my mountain bike and a lot of different areas. It's funny, you'll show up with your traditional mountain bike setup in the locals and just lucky and shake their heads and it's the stuff not the right tire for here. And I think that's true in the gravel market, I think you see stuff like with dirty cancer where you have to worry about the super sharp rocks. I mean everyone's gonna flat once or twice probably on that course. And so they're specific stuff for that. Um, and I think yeah, it really depends on the rider. So here, like you said, we have more mountain bike terrain that you're writing a, a gravel bike on and I think that tends to push a lot of our clients towards exploring a slightly wider tire.

It probably is a little bit of a local phenomenon, but I also think it depends on the writer and how much you want to push it as well because, you know, I know that you'll ride your gravel bike on stuff that a lot of people wouldn't want to take the gravel bike on as well too. So I think that's what makes this whole category of vice a little harder to find, to define because the bikes are getting more capable. But it really depends on what you're most in intended uses for it, for the bike. So when you look across the brands that you guys carry, so moots, IAF, parley, just to name a few. Yup. Do you see different approaches from those different manufacturers with respect to the amount of tire clearance that they're building into their bikes? Yeah, I think so.

I think definitely and, and um, so moods, for example, does three different gravel bikes. They do the route they do the route rsl and the route 45, the route will clear up to about a 38 mil tire. And that was the first bike they launched the route 45 will clear up to a 45 mile tire and then the route Rsl, they just reconfigured. It clears depending on the tire rim combination, somewhere between a 40 and 42 mil tire. And I think that's, that changes happen more from pushback from people wanting to run wider tires. So that's a great example. So you've got a beautiful titanium frame manufacturer and moots. How do you decide the difference? Are there things you're giving up if you're going to the larger tire configuration? Not really. Um, I think the initial thought was that, that you were in. It's funny if you look at what happened say in the, in the road cycling world, five, six, seven years ago, everyone was running 23 mil tires at 120 psi.

Then we started to see people running slightly wider rims and 25 mil tires and decreasing the tire pressure a little bit and no one really runs 20 three's anymore and everyone is probably running 25 or 20 eights and you're giving up very little. And I think we're seeing the same thing on the gravel side of stuff now as well. As the rims get wider, the tires get wider. The rubber compound improves, the tread patterns improve. You're giving up very little and you might have a slightly longer chain stays. So the bike might not handle a switchback quite as well. But it's a very minor compromised. And I think what you get in terms of comfort and capability of the bike and it's capability in terms of traction, which applies to both a climbing up steep terrain, which we have a lot of around here. Breaking on steep terrain in which we have a lot of around here and then cornering on loose stuff, which we have as well too.

So I think there's very little downside going with the, the wider tire. And it's interesting because for us the trend is definitely been switching more from selling route, the traditional route to the route 45 in the RSL because the demand is for the, the wider tire. So right now I've, I've had the pleasure of writing with a number of your customers out on the trail and I've seen them on steel by accessing them on antibiotics or non carbon bikes when I'm coming in asking the question and just looking for your advice, how are you kind of helping them guide them through that selection process on the frame materials? Yeah, sure. Um, so we build everything from the frame up so there's no need for us to sell one brand over another. It's, it's, we want to start with the conversation and figure out what's, what's right for you as, as the client.

Um, and I think figuring out some guys are coming in from a racing background and only one to ride carbon bikes. Some guys are coming in from the more old school background. We're all, everyone is a steel bike and some guys are intrigued by titanium bikes. So it's kind of walking you through that and it's also finding a brand that you align with. What brand are you excited about? Because I think for me, and I think you can relate to this as well to you love your bike and you're excited to ride it and that's what gets you out the door and makes you want to ride it more. And I think let's figure out what's, what, what drives you to a particular bike. It can be both in terms of capabilities in the aesthetic as well too. And I think choosing between the materials, we kind of walk you through all the differences between them.

Some guys want something that's super light and you're never going to build a metal bike that's quite as light as a, as a higher end carbon bike. Some guys know that they're really rough on equipment and a metal bike then is a better choice for them. Uh, I think that the durability aspect of a titanium bike is phenomenal. Uh, I think now that the industry is kind of settling on 12 mil through axles and flat mount disc brakes, it's a little easier to find something that is going to stay more current. It's, I would never say it's future proof, but it's going to be a bike that you buy it with the intent of having for a long time and you'll be able to keep it current for, for a lot longer, uh, which is, which is a little bit more comforting because I was definitely not the case just a few years ago.

So yeah, I think if you look at the evolution of the gravel bikes from four, five years ago, it's dramatically different today. I absolutely think you're right. Like you buy a bike today or within the last year, you're in the right sweet spot. You've got a high performance bike that's going to really handle anything you can throw at it. Yeah, I agree. And you know, we're seeing some, one of the challenges with the bike industry is that there are not too many things that are standardized, but seeing the industry embrace flat mount a and 12 mil through axles makes it a lot easier to really have confidence that you're getting something that's gonna stay current for a little bit longer. So yeah, I tell you, I was a little bit nervous on the coast ride this year at the notion of getting a flat or having some serious issue with my wheels because I had no chance of getting a deer axle wheel on that road ride.

Yeah. Thankfully, thankfully that, that starting sort out a little bit. So um, and it's, you know, the more and more I think what people are gravitating towards her disc brakes and that's on the road and obviously on the gravel side as well too. So I think that's pushed the industry to really focus on standardizing that. The, the, the, the next coast ready go on. I think you see a lot more people that you can swap wheels with if you need to write on. So do you have any favorite bikes in the shop right now? And I got a lot of beauty sitting over there. Yeah, it's funny. Everyone knows. Asked w what's, what's your favorite bike? And my joking response is that it's, it's whatever one I'm on at the moment. For me, the most recent bike built up is the part of the zero xd.

I mean, you and I have written gravel bikes at several times now and I've been on a beautiful independent fabrication, a titanium bike for, for a bit now. And um, it's, it's really nice jumping on on the part the as well too, to kind of all the stuff we were talking about earlier. It has a lot of the more modern touches that, uh, that my previous bike didn't have. And so for me that I would say that's, that that's my favorite. Uh, it's just, it's what I built that up probably two and a half weeks ago and it's what have been on just about every day. So, um, but I suspect it will make an appearance on the shops instagram feed sooner or later. So that's sort of follow that channel yet, did you notice any visceral differences between the titanium frame and the carbon frame right off the bat?

I think a few things. I think it's just, it's the nature of the material, it's just going to be a little bit more responsive so there's no shortage of climbing year to test it. It does clear with some wider tires and I built this bike up to be a little bit more dirt focused where the previous bike, um, I do a lot of mixed terrain writing and that was definitely um, I wouldn't say skewed more road or more dirt. It was right down the middle and this one is a little bit more dirt focused, some, some knobby rear tires and a one by drive train. So it is a little bit more competence inspiring in the dirt. And I think also the geometry of the bike it, I'm running some wider tires and it has a more relaxed head, ankles. So going down some of these deeper, more technical stuff, it's a little bit more forgiving.

So. Nice. Yeah, it's going to be fun to ride with you on that now. Absolutely. So you mentioned the one by setup. I think that's one of the big questions when someone's really seriously considering one of these bikes. Yep. Particularly if they're considering what I like to call a quiver consolidation or they're going to use it as a, as their road bike as well as their gravel bike. Yep. One bias is a commitment. Yup. So talk about that process and obviously as you're advising customers between a one by in a to buy setup, how do you go about explaining what they should be thinking about? Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, I think it's easier to digest now than it was say two or three years ago with the mountain bike industry really pushing the one by drive trains from both Shimano, instagram, uh, I think consumers are used to seeing that a little bit more and, and most likely having written it as well too.

So you understand that the jumps between each gear or a little bit bigger when you're running a one by drive train. But I think for the person who's, who's using the bike for a lot of road miles and also some dirt miles, you can't get that same fine tuning of cadence that you can get with a two by that you can, uh, you can achieve that with a one by the same way you can with the two buys. So if you are going to do, we have a lot of clients, for example, who spent a lot of time commuting and doing their weekend rides, um, on, on the gravel bikes. And I'm putting on putting on some good road miles. And I think a two bicep is great for that. The two buys setups are phenomenal. If you're doing more direct focus, riding on some bumpier terrain, the advantage of a one by Dr Training and having a derailer with a clutch in it is really pretty nice on the bumpier terrain.

So, um, if you came in saying, Hey Chris, you know, my goal is to build up a gravel road. I live at the base of Mount Tam. I'm doing a lot of rides on, on some bumpier training. It's 80 percent or 20 percent road than I think it's worth exploring. One by drive train. If you're doing 60 slash 40 road to dirt or 50 slash 50. I think we talked through the, the, the two by drive train as well too because like you said, if you're just throwing a different set of wheels on there and using it for a road ride and going out with your buddies and putting some good road miles on it too. Um, it's, it's, you're a lot more comfortable having a to buy setup setup. So. Gotcha. So if I'm investing in a two by drive train and a nice high end gravel Fram Yup.

Am I selling my road bike on Ebay or am I keeping. What's your thought? Don't sell it until you've written, written the gravel bike on the road. I think I'm a gravel bike and fill a certain people's needs on the road bike. But if you, um, it, it's just not, it doesn't have that same razor sharp feel. And that same ultra responsiveness that a modern robot does as well too. So they're different enough that if you have room in your garage, it's not a bad thing to have two or room in the budget, but if you're, if you're trying to make room in your budget or your garage, the, the modern gravel bike and can fill both pretty good. I, I give the um, the, the futon analogy to a lot of people were a gravel bike is not the best road bike and it's not the best mountain bike, but it fills a need really well.

So if you know what you're going in and looking for then then um, then I think they're phenomenal and I think it's, I like to get people out on the true gravel ride and let them feel the bike underneath them and have them come back with questions and thoughts and then help them digest that a little bit more because I think they're great. But if you go into it expecting it to fill the need of a mountain bike and a road bike, they're just so different. Um, but if your expectations on the road side of things are that you can give up a little. Just a little bit of performance then. Yeah, you can. You can easily do a lot. A lot of road riding on, on a, on a modern gravel bike, that's for sure. So a lot of people I talk to are intrigued by gravel riding by.

They haven't quite made that leap of faith yet as a shop. Have you guys created events or other opportunities for people to get out on the trails and sort of have that light bulb go off? Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's, it's one of my favorite things to do. One of the things that we really put a lot of effort into over 10 years ago now, it was just really committing to building community. It's one of most challenging things you can do, but for us it's also been one of the most rewarding things. Um, it's just the relationships that we've built with clients outside of our four walls here, uh, has been, has been really pretty incredible. And I think a lot of the experiences that you can get with someone on a bike are just, there's nothing else like it and taking people out on a gravel ride, uh, is, is really pretty special.

I, I took a couple of guys at this past weekend and I think for people that are looking at bikes, I was not to keep giving me analogies, but I give the, it's, it's like going to look at a puppy, a you can't go look at a puppy and that long one and you're not going to go out and ride a gravel bike and not think that you don't want one in this area. It's pretty special. And I think, um, a lot of the stuff that we've done is incorporated a lot of gravel rides into our Sunday shoprite's. We've brought in some great demo bikes as well too. And um, we do some great. Um, we do some great trips as well too. So let's see, next month in May we're going to do a trip out to steamboat and ride with the guys at moves for four days.

Um, we're going to do some, some other stuff a little bit later in the summer and then we, we have, we work with a lot of our brand partners who come through with, with demo bikes as well too. So we love getting people out on bikes. That's awesome. On that moods trip, is there an opportunity to demo all those different bikes you were referencing earlier? Yeah, absolutely. I actually just got a list today from, from my rep about what we're going to have a available and then we're having some more demo bikes, have our own fruit for that trip built up as well too. So, um, yeah, it's uh, there's there, there's definitely opportunity to demo some bikes on that. So that's really awesome. Well you guys have been very generous with your time and the community and I appreciate the weekend shop rides and that's really the fundamental building block of any cycling community and uh, it takes a lot of effort and energy for you guys to always be there on a Sunday morning and putting out those blog posts.

So. So props to you and all the other great bike shops out there that are doing weekend shop rides. Yeah. No thanks Greg. We, we, we love doing it. It's um, it's uh, you know, you had the occasional Sunday morning when your alarm goes off early and you wonder if it's what you really want to do, but as soon as you get out there and start chatting with people and get on your bike, it's uh, you, you never regretted it. It's unbelievably rewarding. So, um, and then in the summertime too, when, when the days are a little longer, we do some fun evening rides as well and um, you know, we're, we're constantly getting out in the mornings with our clients or in the evenings after work as well too. So it's kind of the shoot us an email or give us a call if you want to ride a bike and uh, you know, we're always there for Jonah in his hand.

Right on. What's the best way to follow the shop and support you guys? Yeah, so I'm probably our instagram feed. That's something that we've been working on building. I'm building out a bit more this year with more regular posts. Um, we have a great email distribution list to, for our shop ride so people can contact me and I'm happy to add them to the list and um, and uh, come into the shop to, there's nothing better than, uh, than uh, seeing someone in person shaking their hand and, uh, and, and meeting new clients. Yeah, absolutely. And if or if someone's out of town and they wanted to join one of your, the Colorado trip with moods or wondering or European trips, is that something that's. Yeah, just jump on our website. All the imposed their contact info. Um, we also have some, if you're coming in from out of town, coming into the area and wanted to do some writing, um, we're happy to help you out and steering in the right direction for roadmap or gravel. But we also on our website have some, uh, gravel rights that you can download the route and, uh, and get started that way. Okay. Well I'll make sure to reference all those sites and links in the show notes. Um, I really appreciate the time tonight, Chris was a lot of fun. Yeah, my pleasure. I'm looking forward to looking at some bikes on the way out the door. Absolutely. Um, and yeah, thanks again. Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. And, uh, let's ride some bikes right on.

This week on the Pod we've got Chris Reed from studio Valla bike shop in mill valley, California. We're actually recording in the shop today, so I just walked across this beautiful showroom, looked at some moots, looked at some parleys, some independent fabrication's, a lot of great bike sitting around. So Chris, thanks for having us tonight. Thanks for. Thanks for coming over. Really excited. Can you tell us a little bit about the background of Studio Velo? Sure. Uh, it's actually, it's a pretty cool story compared, I think to what you see with a lot of bike shops. It actually started as mobile bike repair, uh, about 13 years ago from one of my partners who got into it as a, he was trying to figure out how to make money while he was trying to run a wine and olive oil importing business and uh, had done a stint in Europe at a bike shop while he was taking his mba in Spain and started bringing some of that back here where he was working on relationships with olive oil and wine companies and trying to build a little bit of a mobile bike repair business as well too.

So it was literally on the side of the bike path, lubing by chains handing out business cards, really building it from the ground up. So I mean this bike shop was started with a $10,000 credit card limit over the course of the last 13 years. We've really grown and evolved it from a service bike repair service business into what we are today, which is much more of a retail experience for clients as well too. So with a heavy service component, but a much different much different business model for sure. So, and this location downtown, Mill Valley is the second location that you had technically the third location. The first location was in Tam junction really behind the supermarket. So it's hard to see now. And then about a little over five years ago we moved into this location. Well this is a great spot to set the scene for everybody.

We're right downtown in mill valley. So a lot of group rides me just around the corner near the depot. A perfect location and lots of places to grab food after you come shopping for bikes. Yeah. And we are. We absolutely love this location and I think it's pretty interesting. We lead a lot of trips to Europe and some great places around the world and one of the things we always love to seek out are these great little towns at the base of these mountains where you can grab a great coffee. And the reality is that's essentially what we have here. And we come back from these trips and we do some of our local rides and finish the ride back here and look out the door and we're at the base of a mountain under the redwoods and a beautiful part of the world. It's, it's, it's a pretty great spot for cycling.

So yeah, I think that's actually a good pro tip for our listeners out of town to make sure to put mill valley on a, on their bucket list of places to ride out of. And I know you will get into some of the shop rides you guys do locally here, but there's plenty of trails, plenty of gravel riding right outside our door. Absolutely. So how about you Chris? What's your cycling background? My cycling background is, it's long in the sense that I've been doing as, as long as I can remember. I mean I started walking early and was on a bike pretty, pretty, pretty quick thereafter. Um, I lived in Holland for a couple of years when I was five, six years old and rode everywhere. There was well on my way before that. The town I grew up in, uh, in Massachusetts is pretty small farm town and anywhere, anytime you wanted to get anywhere you had to do it on a bike.

So I was on a bike for from an early age. I'm not necessarily drawn to racing, just riding. Um, so it's, it's always been something I've loved doing. I moved out to San Francisco after college and, uh, got more into road riding at that point. I'd only really been more into mountain biking before that. It's, it's been, it's funny. I think a lot of people who start off mountain biking think they'll never get into road riding. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it, really took to that. Still Rode my mountain bike a lot. And then this whole gravel phenomenon that's really emerged in the last few years, um, I did a lot of road riding and my road bike on the dirt leading up to that and didn't really have the right equipment for it and definitely beat up a lot of road bike equipment and just really got into cycling for a love of writing, not necessarily from a racing standpoint.

So, uh, I've been riding bikes for a long time, but uh, but not necessarily at the, at the highest level of competition. I think there's a lot of commonality in what you've been saying about mountain biking and road biking and appreciating both as unique disciplines in the sport and, you know, I think we share that, that gravel is its own unique discipline at that point. And the equipment that's emerged over the last couple of years is really enabling the type of adventurous writing that is. It's, it's great for the soul in my mind just to get out there in the woods and away from the traffic. Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more. I think that's, um, I think that's absolutely right. And I think as this area in particular starts to get packed with more people in cars, it's, you see more people gravitating towards riding their bikes in different areas that our main roads, we've got great infrastructure for roads as far as getting access to a phenomenal landscapes and scenery.

But the reality is there's more people than maybe the roads can support. And so, uh, it's great to take advantage of the vast network of trails that we have and I think what we have here isn't necessarily the traditional gravel riding terrain, but we've got an unbelievable mix of off road terrain and, and road that you can link together to put together world class rides. Uh, it's, it's super unique. That's so true. I'm excited to get into a little gravel bike, one one-on-one one tonight because I've got a lot of listeners who have kind of pinged me on social channels just saying, hey craig, how would you define gravel riding? So as a shop owner, curious to hear when you thought the gravel biking seem really started to emerge from your brand partners that you're working with. Yeah, no, know that that's a great question.

And I think it's, it's definitely the most challenging category that we work with because it's not clearly defined. I think road riding is probably the most easily defined. There's a few subcategories there. I think on the mountain bike side, a lot has changed in the last few years with geometry of bikes and and capability of bikes. But I think it's a little bit easier to classify and on the global side of things, um, I think it's really pretty interesting because there's so much that's changed so quickly. Uh, and I think that it's really benefited from a lot of the advancements in technology and materials. Um, I think manufacturers took a stab at it probably about five years ago and it was cross bikes that would maybe start to clear slightly wider tire. But I think there was a lot of people riding cross bikes, um, in, in non cross bike specific ways, meaning that it wasn't.

They were using it for non race riding. And I think um, as disparate became the go goto on mountain bikes, people realize pretty quickly how inferior breaking of cantilever bridge was. And I think started putting pressure on the industry to make some changes. And I think putting disc brakes on I'm cross bikes was, was one of the first things that I think got more people excited about riding cross bikes off road. And it's funny, one of the first manufacturers that we worked with, Cathy, we actually built cross bikes with disc brakes. There were cable actuated districts, but bamboo cross bikes, uh, 10 years ago. I'm actually almost 11 years ago now, so it's been around I think longer than people really tend to think, but I don't think it was at the forefront of the industry. And I think the industry can be slow to embrace some changes.

29er for example. It took the industry a really long time to get behind that. Um, I think it took two years maybe for Fox to start making suspension forks it to. Same thing for maverick to start making wheels. So there was a push from the consumer side, but it took the industry a little bit longer to adapt to it. Six 50 be 27, five wheels started to come. Uh, I think the industry accepted that change more quickly and it happened almost overnight. Gravel riding was a little bit slower, but we're now in the point where it's changing quickly and there's a lot of changes and a lot of different areas. Um, so it's, it's, it's pretty unique right now. So if I come through the door as a customer and I'm looking at a drop bar, road bike, and a drop bar, gravel bike to the layman, they look quite similar.

Maybe the, I noticed the knobby tires versus the slick tires. Sure. Well what's going on under the hood? What's the differences in the geometry or the positioning or some of the components that I really should be thinking about when looking at a gravel bike share? Yeah. No, it's a great question. I think for us, we always wanted to start with figuring out what are you going to use the bike most for because I think for a lot of people that you can use a gravel bike as a road bike and then a lot of people that really want to focus more on road riding, on gravel bikes, not going to be quite the right setup. You can get a lot of the performance that you get from a road bike, but maybe not that last 10 percent, um, which a lot of people are after as well too.

So if you're looking at differences between them in terms of geometries, you'll see stuff like the head tube angle on a gravel bike will be a little bit more relaxed than, than um, a road bike. You'll, that'll give you a little bit more stability on the downhill is a little bit more clearance for running a bigger tire. So you're gonna have less pto overlap. Um, you're going to see, uh, the change stays being a little bit longer and that'll help clear the, the bigger tires in the back as well too. And I think we're seeing as the gravel market really changes and emerges changes, uh, a few different gravel offerings from different companies. One of the things that we've really seen a lot of is the, the interest in going wider and wider with tires. When we first started looking at it four or five years ago, 30 2:30 3:34 more traditional size tires were, were more acceptable.

And now what we're seeing is a lot of people are wanting 36, 38, 40, even 45 mile tires in the roster, seeing a lot more offerings from tire manufacturers. So you can get a tire that really handles a lot better in the dirt and so rose role is pretty good on the road without much sacrifice. So we're seeing a little bit more interested in, in wider tires for mixed terrain use, where before we didn't have quite that same ability to explore that. Do you think those wider tires are a local phenomenon? You mentioned earlier and obviously I ride out of this area as well, that the stuff we take our gravel bikes on is they're effectively mountain bike trails to a large degree versus someone in the Midwest that might be looking at just long flattish fire roads. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good question.

Um, and I, I think tire selection, I think anyone who's into mountain bike and I'll tell you, tire selection is, is very unique for, for each area. I mean hadn't written my mountain bike and a lot of different areas. It's funny, you'll show up with your traditional mountain bike setup in the locals and just lucky and shake their heads and it's the stuff not the right tire for here. And I think that's true in the gravel market, I think you see stuff like with dirty cancer where you have to worry about the super sharp rocks. I mean everyone's gonna flat once or twice probably on that course. And so they're specific stuff for that. Um, and I think yeah, it really depends on the rider. So here, like you said, we have more mountain bike terrain that you're writing a, a gravel bike on and I think that tends to push a lot of our clients towards exploring a slightly wider tire.

It probably is a little bit of a local phenomenon, but I also think it depends on the writer and how much you want to push it as well because, you know, I know that you'll ride your gravel bike on stuff that a lot of people wouldn't want to take the gravel bike on as well too. So I think that's what makes this whole category of vice a little harder to find, to define because the bikes are getting more capable. But it really depends on what you're most in intended uses for it, for the bike. So when you look across the brands that you guys carry, so moots, IAF, parley, just to name a few. Yup. Do you see different approaches from those different manufacturers with respect to the amount of tire clearance that they're building into their bikes? Yeah, I think so.

I think definitely and, and um, so moods, for example, does three different gravel bikes. They do the route they do the route rsl and the route 45, the route will clear up to about a 38 mil tire. And that was the first bike they launched the route 45 will clear up to a 45 mile tire and then the route Rsl, they just reconfigured. It clears depending on the tire rim combination, somewhere between a 40 and 42 mil tire. And I think that's, that changes happen more from pushback from people wanting to run wider tires. So that's a great example. So you've got a beautiful titanium frame manufacturer and moots. How do you decide the difference? Are there things you're giving up if you're going to the larger tire configuration? Not really. Um, I think the initial thought was that, that you were in. It's funny if you look at what happened say in the, in the road cycling world, five, six, seven years ago, everyone was running 23 mil tires at 120 psi.

Then we started to see people running slightly wider rims and 25 mil tires and decreasing the tire pressure a little bit and no one really runs 20 three's anymore and everyone is probably running 25 or 20 eights and you're giving up very little. And I think we're seeing the same thing on the gravel side of stuff now as well. As the rims get wider, the tires get wider. The rubber compound improves, the tread patterns improve. You're giving up very little and you might have a slightly longer chain stays. So the bike might not handle a switchback quite as well. But it's a very minor compromised. And I think what you get in terms of comfort and capability of the bike and it's capability in terms of traction, which applies to both a climbing up steep terrain, which we have a lot of around here. Breaking on steep terrain in which we have a lot of around here and then cornering on loose stuff, which we have as well too.

So I think there's very little downside going with the, the wider tire. And it's interesting because for us the trend is definitely been switching more from selling route, the traditional route to the route 45 in the RSL because the demand is for the, the wider tire. So right now I've, I've had the pleasure of writing with a number of your customers out on the trail and I've seen them on steel by accessing them on antibiotics or non carbon bikes when I'm coming in asking the question and just looking for your advice, how are you kind of helping them guide them through that selection process on the frame materials? Yeah, sure. Um, so we build everything from the frame up so there's no need for us to sell one brand over another. It's, it's, we want to start with the conversation and figure out what's, what's right for you as, as the client.

Um, and I think figuring out some guys are coming in from a racing background and only one to ride carbon bikes. Some guys are coming in from the more old school background. We're all, everyone is a steel bike and some guys are intrigued by titanium bikes. So it's kind of walking you through that and it's also finding a brand that you align with. What brand are you excited about? Because I think for me, and I think you can relate to this as well to you love your bike and you're excited to ride it and that's what gets you out the door and makes you want to ride it more. And I think let's figure out what's, what, what drives you to a particular bike. It can be both in terms of capabilities in the aesthetic as well too. And I think choosing between the materials, we kind of walk you through all the differences between them.

Some guys want something that's super light and you're never going to build a metal bike that's quite as light as a, as a higher end carbon bike. Some guys know that they're really rough on equipment and a metal bike then is a better choice for them. Uh, I think that the durability aspect of a titanium bike is phenomenal. Uh, I think now that the industry is kind of settling on 12 mil through axles and flat mount disc brakes, it's a little easier to find something that is going to stay more current. It's, I would never say it's future proof, but it's going to be a bike that you buy it with the intent of having for a long time and you'll be able to keep it current for, for a lot longer, uh, which is, which is a little bit more comforting because I was definitely not the case just a few years ago.

So yeah, I think if you look at the evolution of the gravel bikes from four, five years ago, it's dramatically different today. I absolutely think you're right. Like you buy a bike today or within the last year, you're in the right sweet spot. You've got a high performance bike that's going to really handle anything you can throw at it. Yeah, I agree. And you know, we're seeing some, one of the challenges with the bike industry is that there are not too many things that are standardized, but seeing the industry embrace flat mount a and 12 mil through axles makes it a lot easier to really have confidence that you're getting something that's gonna stay current for a little bit longer. So yeah, I tell you, I was a little bit nervous on the coast ride this year at the notion of getting a flat or having some serious issue with my wheels because I had no chance of getting a deer axle wheel on that road ride.

Yeah. Thankfully, thankfully that, that starting sort out a little bit. So um, and it's, you know, the more and more I think what people are gravitating towards her disc brakes and that's on the road and obviously on the gravel side as well too. So I think that's pushed the industry to really focus on standardizing that. The, the, the, the next coast ready go on. I think you see a lot more people that you can swap wheels with if you need to write on. So do you have any favorite bikes in the shop right now? And I got a lot of beauty sitting over there. Yeah, it's funny. Everyone knows. Asked w what's, what's your favorite bike? And my joking response is that it's, it's whatever one I'm on at the moment. For me, the most recent bike built up is the part of the zero xd.

I mean, you and I have written gravel bikes at several times now and I've been on a beautiful independent fabrication, a titanium bike for, for a bit now. And um, it's, it's really nice jumping on on the part the as well too, to kind of all the stuff we were talking about earlier. It has a lot of the more modern touches that, uh, that my previous bike didn't have. And so for me that I would say that's, that that's my favorite. Uh, it's just, it's what I built that up probably two and a half weeks ago and it's what have been on just about every day. So, um, but I suspect it will make an appearance on the shops instagram feed sooner or later. So that's sort of follow that channel yet, did you notice any visceral differences between the titanium frame and the carbon frame right off the bat?

I think a few things. I think it's just, it's the nature of the material, it's just going to be a little bit more responsive so there's no shortage of climbing year to test it. It does clear with some wider tires and I built this bike up to be a little bit more dirt focused where the previous bike, um, I do a lot of mixed terrain writing and that was definitely um, I wouldn't say skewed more road or more dirt. It was right down the middle and this one is a little bit more dirt focused, some, some knobby rear tires and a one by drive train. So it is a little bit more competence inspiring in the dirt. And I think also the geometry of the bike it, I'm running some wider tires and it has a more relaxed head, ankles. So going down some of these deeper, more technical stuff, it's a little bit more forgiving.

So. Nice. Yeah, it's going to be fun to ride with you on that now. Absolutely. So you mentioned the one by setup. I think that's one of the big questions when someone's really seriously considering one of these bikes. Yep. Particularly if they're considering what I like to call a quiver consolidation or they're going to use it as a, as their road bike as well as their gravel bike. Yep. One bias is a commitment. Yup. So talk about that process and obviously as you're advising customers between a one by in a to buy setup, how do you go about explaining what they should be thinking about? Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, I think it's easier to digest now than it was say two or three years ago with the mountain bike industry really pushing the one by drive trains from both Shimano, instagram, uh, I think consumers are used to seeing that a little bit more and, and most likely having written it as well too.

So you understand that the jumps between each gear or a little bit bigger when you're running a one by drive train. But I think for the person who's, who's using the bike for a lot of road miles and also some dirt miles, you can't get that same fine tuning of cadence that you can get with a two by that you can, uh, you can achieve that with a one by the same way you can with the two buys. So if you are going to do, we have a lot of clients, for example, who spent a lot of time commuting and doing their weekend rides, um, on, on the gravel bikes. And I'm putting on putting on some good road miles. And I think a two bicep is great for that. The two buys setups are phenomenal. If you're doing more direct focus, riding on some bumpier terrain, the advantage of a one by Dr Training and having a derailer with a clutch in it is really pretty nice on the bumpier terrain.

So, um, if you came in saying, Hey Chris, you know, my goal is to build up a gravel road. I live at the base of Mount Tam. I'm doing a lot of rides on, on some bumpier training. It's 80 percent or 20 percent road than I think it's worth exploring. One by drive train. If you're doing 60 slash 40 road to dirt or 50 slash 50. I think we talked through the, the, the two by drive train as well too because like you said, if you're just throwing a different set of wheels on there and using it for a road ride and going out with your buddies and putting some good road miles on it too. Um, it's, it's, you're a lot more comfortable having a to buy setup setup. So. Gotcha. So if I'm investing in a two by drive train and a nice high end gravel Fram Yup.

Am I selling my road bike on Ebay or am I keeping. What's your thought? Don't sell it until you've written, written the gravel bike on the road. I think I'm a gravel bike and fill a certain people's needs on the road bike. But if you, um, it, it's just not, it doesn't have that same razor sharp feel. And that same ultra responsiveness that a modern robot does as well too. So they're different enough that if you have room in your garage, it's not a bad thing to have two or room in the budget, but if you're, if you're trying to make room in your budget or your garage, the, the modern gravel bike and can fill both pretty good. I, I give the um, the, the futon analogy to a lot of people were a gravel bike is not the best road bike and it's not the best mountain bike, but it fills a need really well.

So if you know what you're going in and looking for then then um, then I think they're phenomenal and I think it's, I like to get people out on the true gravel ride and let them feel the bike underneath them and have them come back with questions and thoughts and then help them digest that a little bit more because I think they're great. But if you go into it expecting it to fill the need of a mountain bike and a road bike, they're just so different. Um, but if your expectations on the road side of things are that you can give up a little. Just a little bit of performance then. Yeah, you can. You can easily do a lot. A lot of road riding on, on a, on a modern gravel bike, that's for sure. So a lot of people I talk to are intrigued by gravel riding by.

They haven't quite made that leap of faith yet as a shop. Have you guys created events or other opportunities for people to get out on the trails and sort of have that light bulb go off? Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's, it's one of my favorite things to do. One of the things that we really put a lot of effort into over 10 years ago now, it was just really committing to building community. It's one of most challenging things you can do, but for us it's also been one of the most rewarding things. Um, it's just the relationships that we've built with clients outside of our four walls here, uh, has been, has been really pretty incredible. And I think a lot of the experiences that you can get with someone on a bike are just, there's nothing else like it and taking people out on a gravel ride, uh, is, is really pretty special.

I, I took a couple of guys at this past weekend and I think for people that are looking at bikes, I was not to keep giving me analogies, but I give the, it's, it's like going to look at a puppy, a you can't go look at a puppy and that long one and you're not going to go out and ride a gravel bike and not think that you don't want one in this area. It's pretty special. And I think, um, a lot of the stuff that we've done is incorporated a lot of gravel rides into our Sunday shoprite's. We've brought in some great demo bikes as well too. And um, we do some great. Um, we do some great trips as well too. So let's see, next month in May we're going to do a trip out to steamboat and ride with the guys at moves for four days.

Um, we're going to do some, some other stuff a little bit later in the summer and then we, we have, we work with a lot of our brand partners who come through with, with demo bikes as well too. So we love getting people out on bikes. That's awesome. On that moods trip, is there an opportunity to demo all those different bikes you were referencing earlier? Yeah, absolutely. I actually just got a list today from, from my rep about what we're going to have a available and then we're having some more demo bikes, have our own fruit for that trip built up as well too. So, um, yeah, it's uh, there's there, there's definitely opportunity to demo some bikes on that. So that's really awesome. Well you guys have been very generous with your time and the community and I appreciate the weekend shop rides and that's really the fundamental building block of any cycling community and uh, it takes a lot of effort and energy for you guys to always be there on a Sunday morning and putting out those blog posts.

So. So props to you and all the other great bike shops out there that are doing weekend shop rides. Yeah. No thanks Greg. We, we, we love doing it. It's um, it's uh, you know, you had the occasional Sunday morning when your alarm goes off early and you wonder if it's what you really want to do, but as soon as you get out there and start chatting with people and get on your bike, it's uh, you, you never regretted it. It's unbelievably rewarding. So, um, and then in the summertime too, when, when the days are a little longer, we do some fun evening rides as well and um, you know, we're, we're constantly getting out in the mornings with our clients or in the evenings after work as well too. So it's kind of the shoot us an email or give us a call if you want to ride a bike and uh, you know, we're always there for Jonah in his hand.

Right on. What's the best way to follow the shop and support you guys? Yeah, so I'm probably our instagram feed. That's something that we've been working on building. I'm building out a bit more this year with more regular posts. Um, we have a great email distribution list to, for our shop ride so people can contact me and I'm happy to add them to the list and um, and uh, come into the shop to, there's nothing better than, uh, than uh, seeing someone in person shaking their hand and, uh, and, and meeting new clients. Yeah, absolutely. And if or if someone's out of town and they wanted to join one of your, the Colorado trip with moods or wondering or European trips, is that something that's. Yeah, just jump on our website. All the imposed their contact info. Um, we also have some, if you're coming in from out of town, coming into the area and wanted to do some writing, um, we're happy to help you out and steering in the right direction for roadmap or gravel. But we also on our website have some, uh, gravel rights that you can download the route and, uh, and get started that way. Okay. Well I'll make sure to reference all those sites and links in the show notes. Um, I really appreciate the time tonight, Chris was a lot of fun. Yeah, my pleasure. I'm looking forward to looking at some bikes on the way out the door. Absolutely. Um, and yeah, thanks again. Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. And, uh, let's ride some bikes right on.

]]>26:12cleanGravel Bike 101 with Studio Velo Bicycle shop partner, Chris Reed. Shop rides, finding the right gravel bike for the right rider and the evolution of gravel gear.fullCraig DaltonMiguel Crawford, President and Founder of the 20 year old Grasshopper Adventure Series talks about event production and the evolution of gravel cyclingMiguel Crawford, President and Founder of the 20 year old Grasshopper Adventure Series talks about event production and the evolution of gravel cyclingMon, 16 Apr 2018 03:41:54 +0000Episode Links:

"Once we started doing an old cars, then it became tricky. That's kind of the defining roads of the grasshopper adventure series and I think, in some ways, for the development of the gravel bike." Miguel Crawford, Founder and Present of the Grasshopper Adventure Series

That was this week's guest, Miguel Crawford, talking about the Grasshopper Adventure Series and the Old Caz route and the influence it's had on the sport. The grasshopper adventure series has been going on for 20 years, which is an amazing accomplishment by Miguel and his team. I was stoked to talk to Miguel and learn more about how the event got started 20 years ago about what kind of equipment they were riding along the way, how that equipment's evolved and what the future holds for the grasshopper adventure series.

So with that, let's take it away. Miguel, thanks for joining us on the podcast this week.

It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

I always like to start off by finding a little bit about people's cycling background. So how did cycling come into your life?

Well, I grew up playing on multiple team sports. I grew up playing a soccer and basketball and baseball and was a competitive athlete. I graduated high school in 88 and I'd always been interested in bikes. My drafting teacher in junior high was a bike rider When it was time to get a bike, in high school, it was 1988 and I'd always wanted to get a road bike. And my sister at the time said, hey, these guys in Santa Rosa doing this cool thing called mountain biking and said, oh, that sounds even better. And so I bought a used Stumpjumper in 1988 and the timing was perfect in terms of my personal life, looking for something challenging and exploratory and also trying to find a sport that didn't require me to be involved in a team and a pretty much it's been about bikes since then.

Right on. And have you always stayed on the mountain bike side or did you pick up road riding along the way?

Well that's a good question. So when I went to school, Humbolt State and it was my transportation, so I had slicks on and that I'd put them out by putting on these on. I was talking for it. I'd always wanted additional bike second by couldn't afford it and way I would move back to Sonoma county where I grew up in Sebastopol, eventually picked up a used road bikes from a friend of the folks I started riding mountain bikes, road road bikes. They weren't roadies at that time. He kind of saw people being in one camp or another. But for me it was just as fun to begin riding a road bike. So that was probably a 92 started riding road bikes.

Yeah, it is interesting how we do designate ourselves in one camp or the other. I've always had equal footing, I feel like on the road and the mountain that's when my gravel so interesting to me because it's drawing from both sides of the sport.

It didn't take me long to to realize that my love for cycling and in my past experience with competition, you know, well to the other, so I started competing in mountain bikes and then my group of friends, you know, out of Occidental, which is where I was living road road bikes as well, and so the roads in Virginia county though, and she may or may not have seen, I mean it, you may as well be on a mountain bike, so it's extremely challenging. It's not as if I was in UC Davis or in the flood plains and so to me it really was. It didn't seem like that different of a, of an experience, but my true love is mountain biking has, has always been, still is. It's more thrilling to be out there where there's no cars and be on the edge of the world on our little trailer. That's just what I love the most.

Yeah, absolutely. That's something that drives a lot of us. Just the sort of sense of adventure and getting away from it all. So I'm excited to talk to you about the grasshopper series. Literally every single person I've had on the podcast has referenced the grasshopper adventure series as one of the events that one of the many events in the series that they love to go up and do. It's 20 years old, which is unbelievable to me. When I found out about it. When you made the announcement at old cas this year, can you tell us about the origins of the event and how it got started and what it was like back then?

Yeah, for sure. Well, for one, there wasn't the Internet and there wasn't that web platform. You didn't have, you know, wix or whatever. You couldn't spend half an hour and create a webpage and have an event and basically I was as a teacher, I was sitting at my desk, so I was racing on the weekends and training and teaching and I've been a teacher for 23 years right now and so it's. It's been a good balance between my rating and putting on these events and then what I do as an educator. And so I remember the weekend, a weekend and midweek I'd be thinking about my rides. Think the epiphany for me was after driving down to pine slot, which is a beautiful area, but I think we spent six hours of driving and then a hotel and we went to go race and I got had a bad day and ended up in the or and in Fresno behind bulletproof glass and it turns out had a kidney stone and it was a crappy day and a lot of money.

And then I got back to my place and Occidental, I thought, you know, I don't want to drive. I don't want to be in hotels. I don't want to spend money and I also didn't want the experience. But what happens in road races if you're not at the sharp end of the field, the whole rest of the group just rides neutral. And for me it was training and so that sort of, you know, mountain biking. So I thought, well, what if we take. We start from where we live so I don't have to drive. We invite the people who's competitive and we'll have just an agreement that there's no waiting. There's going to be no aid and no support and we'll just see how it goes. And my girlfriend, my wife at the time, my wife would write the results at the end and we'd go drink beer and eat pizza. And um, you know that that's how it started.

Was there a specific route that kind of kicked it all off? Well,

everything started out of Occidental, which many of them do. The very first one include willow creek, but it didn't include old, it was a Sweetwater, which we're doing this in a couple of weeks and then all the way out the river and up will a creek. So from the start it was for me as a mountain biker to look for something that was interesting and fun and had and had dirt so that, that was, that's been, that's been a part of it all along.

Were they the men and women who participated back then? Were they riding mountain bikes or road bikes? What were they on? Mostly?

Well, you know, it's interesting. So at that time I'd say most people on a road bike. So the folks who are, so again, this is before Internet, I tried to call people or mail something so basic, I knew some folks down in Santa Cruz, I knew, uh, uh, Rick Hunter, and then in Santa Rosa there was some folks and then curtis English I think later came from, from Napa area. So the Santa Cruz group, because of their background, we're coming up on cyclocross bikes and then up here we're all on [inaudible] and charge tales with skinny tires. But the first couple ones that included roads were on road bikes. So we're also accustomed to writing road bikes with 25 or 28 had done in many parts of the country. Uh, so that was primarily once we started doing an old cause then it became tricky and I think that's kind of been coming to defining road for a, the grasshopper adventure series. And I think in some ways for the development of, of, of the gravel bike that, that particular, that particular route.

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I was talking to someone the other day about my experience at old cars, which I've done it twice. One was about, I'd say eight years ago on a cross bike with cantilever brakes and then again this year on a unquote gravel bike with disc brakes, 6:50 p size wheels, [inaudible] tires, and it was like night and day. I enjoyed sort of every pedal stroke of it this year. Whereas a member feeling in that first year that I was excited by the adventure, I love the river crossing all the elements of the day, but I was just getting the crap kicked out of me all day.

Oh yeah, right. The gravel bikes are crazy. I mean the diverge I'm on right now and rides and descend better than my old boss off road on the road. It's got fantastic geometry and so at the time he was also around and, and it's, you know, now every, every almost everyone who's making your gravel bike, but there was some resistance. There was the idea of like you have a road bike or you have a mountain bike or do you have a cross bike? And the geometry and the angles and the very aggressive angle than some of them. And then the high bottom bracket, it wasn't, it wasn't perfect, you know, and I think what also added with the grasshopper and old cars is when you add that competitive element and people start to be concerned about what really works best, you know, if you're just cruising and you're on the same bike, it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. But since we're adding that, that [inaudible] like, you know, who's, who's the crusher for the year, you know, people would take it seriously. Um, especially, you know, Glen Fountain, Shane version in from Santa Rosa, Glen's been such a gear freak forever. Tweak it out on the details of tires and every single detail so that, that's kind of attitude as well as the tire manufacturing. I mean, that's, that's been a fantastic change and improvement for all of us. There really weren't many choices back then.

Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. I feel like when disc brakes started to sneak into the cyclocross scene, all of a sudden people started, their eyes started opening as to what those cross bikes can do. And when the frame designers caught up a little bit and made a few tweaks for the kind of more adventurous rising writing and less cyclocross racing, all the sudden these bikes are just opening people's eyes to this gravel writing scene and in a totally new type of writing.

Yeah. And it's putting us where we want it to be, which is off the road. I mean all this, you know, contend with traffic and no one, no one likes to do that. So it's given people the chance to ride roads in their backyard that they may not have written when they had to squeak by on a road bike with 25 c's and deal with floods, you know. And so I understand the mass appeal. Yeah, it's fantastic. And the comfort as well, you know, if you could run a [inaudible] on my boy, the wheels with [inaudible] wt, b's and a little while back and I think he was onset, uh, you know, on this 735 and just looking side by side. And I was like, damn, these wheels and tires just roll fantastically. So yeah, it really is coming down to the wheels and tires these days.

Was there a particular point in the last 20 years where you started to see the equipment really caught up in the participation in the advanced? Just grew?

Yeah. I'm trying to think of a specific Garret's done the last few years. You know, I wish we had photographs of the first eight, 10 years because everyone was the, the, the variety of bikes that would come up. It was just super entertaining and everyone just trying to make it work. I'd say the last three years pretty much everyone showing up with the gravel bike, just kind of the norm. Something happened last year that was interesting. One of the folks who've been doing the hoppers, he said, yeah, I'm buying my first mountain bike. And I looked at him and I thought what dawned on me that people that ride grovel for some people, it's been around long enough that that's the only bike they know and now they're discovering mountain-biking and they're discovering road biking. So I think that's an interesting evolution. Whereas for most of us rode mountain bikes and road bikes and we got into gravel. So, um,

have you, have you considered changing any of the routes given the new types of equipment that are available today? Or is it staying pretty true to the original roots?

True know. I think, you know, we'll talk about later about the branching out to the, to the Mondo event. For me, the hopper has been about Sonoma County, Virginia County and about the community of people. And so, um, it's about writing where we world and the country is a big place so he could go someplace and you could draw this perfect route, but it's, it's not where you live and it's not part of the people were there supporting your vet doesn't really make sense. And so all these are, are, are aware of where we are. So it's also been a big balancing act of making the course of safe and creative and interesting and challenging and also dealing with the fact that they're on open roads. So that's something I'll always taken very seriously. And they've morphed over time to make sure that they're all mostly right hand turns.

For example, people may not have noticed that, but every time you make a left turn you're crossing opposing traffic. So almost all of them go in a counter-clockwise direction, right in a clockwise direction. Think we've nailed it. Pretty sweet spot. King Ridge, you know, for example, that one which has several sections that are now that kind of sums up, you know, the, the trickster role that I'd like to play. I think most people in this area had been writing here 15, 20 years or longer and it never done done King Ridge in that direction. I think even adventures or features of habit sometime. And so that I think that one's perfect. And then I'm looking at doing some other explorations of some areas that got caught. A couple of secrets and a can fill you in on those when plans get near.

You alluded to the hopper. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.

Yeah, sure. Um, well my self, like many others who are a few justice yonder fans can lose huge amount of times. Now that we have google maps and Google Earth, and I'm, and I'm no different, so I have cited my paper Gadgeteers I have quite a collection of roots and uh, so for me, Sonoma County, Mendocino County and Humboldt County are the areas that I've really considered home since, since I was, since I was a kid. I've been looking at changing the format so that we could have a two day event, you know, and I busted possibilities of two days out of one place. So this event's going to be two days, but was camping in the middle. So instead of people driving and parking and doing their event and splitting and we're gonna all be together and my character camp ground in Fort Bragg, so we'll bring stuff out there for people.

It'll be two days of about 75 miles each. And they bought, each of the days will be half gravel. So I think it's just going to be a fantastic two days. You know, when you get into Mendocino County, Humboldt County, it's not hard to find a loop, but to find something about that length, that to loop single loop is tough. I think when I was looking at doing is all one loop. We were looking like a hundred and 35 miles and 15,000 feet of climbing or something and a decreases the number of people that would be interested as well as the logistics of keeping track of people. This was going to be a good one was it gives people a chance to do roads you may see on a map, but it just wouldn't make sense. And I feel like that's ever since I've been writing whether doing mountain bike trips in Downieville or Tahoe or in Moab or crested Butte, I've always been the one to like look at the map. Like, oh my God, where can we go look at this? And for the most part people trusted me to put together things that were, that were interesting. And I still feel like I'm playing that role. Uh, even though it's become more popular for people to go out on their own hosting these events and saying, hey, check out this.

I do feel like it's a big driver for the community. Just like it was back in the early mountain bike days. We all used to sign up for events just to go try new terrain and have someone map it out for us. And I think gravel riders are, are really seeking out those kind of adventures, whether it's a few hours from home or many hours from home. We all want to try new things.

Absolutely. You know, and I think I'm a little. I'm a little Virginia centric where we're buying so much open space and mountains in there. You are in Moran and, and north of San Francisco and in this area. But I think about the amount of people who live east of the rockies. People want to get out of the cities or people who live in big cities. They want to get out. And uh, in those areas there are tons of gravel roads. And I think for the most part, events are happening organically where people live. And say let's, let's do this. So that's cool to see.

I was always curious about your sort of thought process. Do you consider the grasshopper series races or something else?

That's a good question. I've often said they're not racist, but they're harder. It's kind of gone back and forth. I really want it to be something for everyone and I think that they're unique in that you have to coordinate and Ted King and Jessica Bush and Levi, some of the top 10 dam out and then you have people who finished twice as long later. But I think one thing about cycling in these type of events is there's that personal challenge isn't as race, and this was very intentional by me when I started these is people would ride differently. When you say it's a race and people will make decisions in my opinion, that are in their best interests of the group. So I'm really careful about calling it a race. As you know, there was a point standing in a podium, but basically every Wednesday afternoon ride all around the country, people have erases the grasshopper, so they are competitive. They were always meant as competitive training events. It's gone back and forth in terms of the permitting and insurance and also the logistics of actually closing down at an event like you went to her. California. It's not, it's not possible in this area. So there's a couple of reasons why it is purposely a little bit. I'm not clear as to, as to what it is.

No, I personally love, I love how it's called the adventure series and I love in my mind going out there and just having an adventure and I do think it's cool like upfront that it's local pros that are killing it, but for me the races in the middle of the pack somewhere and I'm all about just enjoying the day out there and I have to say that each of the grasshoppers I've done, it's always just been a good day out and when you get to the finish line that's even better.

Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, I've had, I've had the experience, so my oldest kids are 15 and 12 and have a two year old, so there were times at least one year where literally every ride for five months was just a grasshopper. I went from grasshopper to gossip and I did them all and I had the experience of writing initially to try and win them and then writing in the top 10 and then being way in the back, so to be in this group of field. And they became, they became my peers of every single person was giving it as much as when we were in the top 10. And I was. And it was the kind of a light, a light bulb moment. And they were having that same experience as the person that was 45 minutes faster. And I thought that's beautiful, you know, um, in the sense of accomplishment and achievement. And a lot of folks don't see each other all year and they'll come out into a hopper and 20 miles into it there with someone. They're like, Hey Tony, hey, what are you doing? Because the fitness is the ultimate equalizer. And uh, you know, and I think that's one of the beauties as the events gotten larger in terms of numbers, that it's more likely that you're going to end up with similar people, whether it's an old cows or a king rage or super sweet water. Now it should. People telling good stories about that.

Yeah, absolutely. And I do. I don't think that if you call it a race and many of the races we've done on mountain bikes or road bikes when you're off the back, when you're middle of the pack, you're rarely like looking over and having a laugh with someone. There's still that weird race intensity that I think part of it's being in the dirt. Part of it's driving these gravel bikes. Part of it's just these cool events. You just look over and you have a good time. You know, you're not trying to crush the guy next to you for 407th place.

Exactly. And I, and I, one of the things I used to openly joke about when I started this as friends who would, they would do old cars and they wouldn't do the other. And I'm going to Visalia, I want to get my upgrade points from my [inaudible] to my four. I'm like, OK, whatever. So we coined this to profaned to her upgrade points. And uh, that rung true to a lot of people when you look at the movement of gravel and have the type of competition is like, I think it is important to, to acknowledge, uh, the, the top people and to strive for that. But I also don't believe in the minutia of all the age group categories and ability categories so that everyone gets a medal. You know, I don't think that's the experience they're all looking for. And I think that's kind of the direction that it was for a while. It may have all back into that, into some level. I don't know. There's not like an overall governing body for all these events that are, that are popping up, you know, and that, that's a good thing. So um,

yeah, I think it's interesting in the gravel writing community, and we've talked about a little bit before on, on other episodes is it seems like there's a couple of different directions. The way these events are going, there's the kind of four to six hour events and then there's more of the ultra endurance events that are out there and it's going to be interesting to see how it all shakes out and chances are it won't shake out. I think there's room for all types of events for different types of adventures.

I agree. And for different, for different people and for different reasons and for different periods of their life as well. For me, my demographic and almost 50 now and I still like to be fit and compete. So it'd be to show up and race local pro doesn't make sense, you know her last or second to last where I compare my times. But to be able to compete in the 40 to 49 category, I mean there's some super fit guy. He's got a hundred and 50 guys show up at old cars. So there was no podium, but that group of 100 or the top 25 people under 40 or 49 and they know who those people are and they know where they rank and so you're allowed to be competitive without that being the ultimate motivator, you know. So I think that's a, that's a beautiful thing in sport in general and I think it's important to cultivate that in, in our events and the grasshoppers and you know, that that's important to me.

So is there one event that stands out as your personal favorite?

Well, [inaudible] just for a little piece. So I'm not quite the blogger but on facebook, you know, it feels to me right now the Sweetwater, this one coming up and I'll, and I'll tell you why it's because it's just weird. It's like four of our biggest clients is basically a road ride, but then you throw in the middle which is gravel. So it's what I call upper and they're like, oh shit, it's mixed birthday because you can't say no and you gotta go do it. So we do a huge road ride, but then we do old guys in the middle, which means, you know, it's crazy to just ride a gravel bike because you only have that, you know, eight, 10 mile section the gravel, uh, but if you just ride your road bike that it's kinda tricky. And then the fact that we go from the river valley, we do all caps, we have the creek crossing, we climbed to the top of a Fort Ross with the Myers grade descent, which on a clear day it's gotta be one of the best defense in the world and it finishes with the Coleman Valet Con. But truly the best grasshopper for me is the one that I just wasn't really recently did. I mean it, all. Loops that are just that they're all fantastic and they're all a little bit different.

And are there some memories of the last 20 years that stand out to you?

Oh yeah, for sure. This year, pulling off old cast, it's successfully is a big memory. The size of things and just the frenetic energy around it. Um, you'll feel satisfied about that. I say some of the most inclement weather days stand out the most. We had a couple of those last year, I'd say probably the most striking, whether one was, I can't remember the year, but there was a year where everything was flooded and tomatoes area and we're doing Chileno volley and in that area it's interesting because um, the oftentimes check the rain, but in that area you have to check the tide tables because the creeks and highway one flood based upon high tide. And so when we rolled out towards valley for this, when we went down into freestone volley Ford road into front, into Franklin school, the [inaudible] cough was fine, but it didn't rain that much today.

But the tides went up. So by the end of the day and we came through. No, that's not true. It was flood. Actually. I remember that there was a Volkswagen bus that was. So it was about the height of the middle part of your down to at the start of the day. And then at the finishing day, myself and Devin I guess, and a few others were coming through valley for. And I remember him falling over and he actually completely submerged and this was on a paved road, so we're riding through a flood and then uh, and then the sprint, which is like six of us entailed going up the freestone valley Ford Cutoff and when that floods it actually has a current. And so you re, I mean the roads size of a small county road, but you had to literally ride right in the middle because if he fell in the ditch, I mean it's eight, 10 feet deep.

So that one, just because of the miraculousness of us pulling it off really, really stands out to me. I should've, I should've made notes that since, I mean 20 years of five hoppers a year. So that's a lot of. Yeah. Well, I think another, another story is one of the cold days. I'm King Ridge for one of, by, by one of my best friends in the old Lewis. It was doing pretty well. He was ahead of me actually. I rolled into Jenner to get some food. It's one of those days when it was so cold and you had to stop because we didn't have hot food or drinks there and he was pulled over at the market instead of getting like coffee and a snickers or whatever, he was buying a huge piece of smoked salmon, like all I could think about was to buy the first thing he saw and there was a guy standing there, so I think he spent eight, 10 bucks, says Sam and on the side of the road. That's symbolic of people just being completely empty and a emptying out there.

Yeah, I mean it's, it's why people talk about it for three or four days after every grasshopper. Just these memories of the adventure of being out there. I think that's a good way to sum it up.

Yeah. We didn't use to have any water or support for people, so that made it a little extra extra challenging. I feel fine offering Osmo and Goo and, and, and, and sponsors product in nutrition. I feel like that's still not, not, not cheating, both having cold beer for people, but the top. Nobody minds that too much.

I think everybody appreciates it a lot. It's amazing. I mean 20 years. That's so awesome and I can't express enough how cool that is. I think a lot of people would love to know, do you have any tips for first time event organizers to help them kind of pull off something successfully?

I'm a funny guy to us that as I don't have a business degree and totally organically I'm, I'm doing it where you live and what their core is is, is really important. Obviously from a business point of view, there's other things you need you need to look at, but I think just starting on doing a route that's fun to ride and focusing on that, you know, looking out after people just enough so that they're safe and covering your bike, but make it a little bit edgy, I think, uh, is important in this type of this type of event. Putting it on in a way that's not going to create conflict with other users in your area, whether it's hikers request or people on the road. I think that's something that we always have to be mindful of. When we looked around 100, 200, 300 cyclists out there,

that seems like you guys have done a great job of embracing the small community of Occidental in a way that, as you said, 600 people can come into town and try not to disrupt things too much while still bringing economic value to the community.

That's the goal of doing that. Exactly. I'm pretty much, I mean we took over the town and then hopefully they see it as, as a, as a plus. So, you know, it's not business as usual. Um, I know people love and look forward to coming to that town and I think, yeah, taking a destination that you can have a relationship with that, that is important. I'm really looking forward to doing this one again to Mendocino where it's kind of spreading out and connecting with different people. I know up in that way, giving people a chance to, again, I think one of the things it wants to do an event a few times, it's kind of a known thing and a known factor. Although there's always like, how fast can you do it? This Mendocino [inaudible], there's certain pieces when we look at them apps, but it's like you're out there when you're writing Sherwood road, you have 35 miles of dirt from the Ridge on wheels to the coast, you know, so both of both sections of that gives you this really sense of exploration and so that's important to me and the next phase is continuing to have things that have that, that unknown factor and a little bit step by step outside of the comfort zone.

Do you see more events coming in to the grasshopper series?

I don't know. I think just this event's going to be unique and stand on its own. I think people are. There's been a lot of interest in it. I think after the first year, the report back will be that that was a pretty amazing experience and be able to end in camp right on the ocean. It's not. People aren't quite that accountant accustomed to leaving. They're leaving their things and two day events. Yeah, I was something else. Interesting. You know, there's something in October that might be going on in the second day, wouldn't be necessarily a big ride, I think back to back days and then travels a little bit taxing. So something a little bit more social or educational, cultural on the second day and a time to unwind and just be together and the first day of big riding. But yeah, cut some ideas.

Nice.

Hey, but why not? Why not a week? Why not a week long? Right?

Yeah, absolutely. If we can all find the time off from our families a weekend thing. Yeah.

I think that's been, that's been the key of this, of the, of the nor cal community with this stuff as well. I really appreciate, you know, as people, a carve out the time and their daily lives to make time for them, for themselves, you know, to do it their love and keeps her passion gone. I think that all makes us better people with our relationships in our families and our work and really that's where it comes from for me, uh, as, as the teacher, you know, it's like giving us something because we all play bigger roles, more important roles outside of the cycling. And uh, to me it's a, if it's all about biking, it's just a little bit too narrow. I think it's a vehicle for us to be in the world and uh, the northern California cycling community, I'm just impressed with the men and women who just like do so much for each other and for the community and while at the same time finding times to get out and shred and that speaks volumes to the people here.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's pretty natural point to finish our conversation today. I think there's, I mean it sounds like there's really cool future ahead for the grasshopper adventure series and a couple of new tricks up your sleeve and obviously if anybody hasn't been out to one of the events, encourage you to get out there. They're a part of California is beautiful.

Yeah, I appreciate it. And let me, let me not forget to give a plug for, uh, for, for Lake Sonoma, it's like 27 miles of just ripping on single track. It's like a flow trail and uh, the hoppers is about being able to share it on every slide, you know. So you've got your cross bike or mountain bike and your road bike.

It's a good place to start out. Where's the best place to find information on the series?

Our webpage is the best grasshopper adventure series a, you know, follow us on Instagram, a grasshopper adventure series, our facebook page. I tried to keep things active there as a, as a place where people gather information, but our website's got everything I need to know.

I'll make sure to have everything in the show notes on that and that really appreciate you spending the time with us today.

Hey, my pleasure

So that was great. Talking to Miguel this week, the grasshopper adventure series has meant so much to northern California and to the gravel cycling community, I hope would be event organizers. Learned a few tips from Miguel about how to put on a great longstanding event. And how to integrate into a local community and in some late breaking news, I just learned that there Morin Museum of bicycling in Fairfax is interviewing Miguel on April 26. I'll put the link to the events in the show notes, but I want to encourage everybody to go out and see Miguel in person and see some of the great damages he's captured over the years hosting the grasshopper series. As always, thanks for listening. If you have any feedback, you can hit us on instagram at the gravel ride. Shoot me a note at Craig at the gravel ride that bike. And also don't forget to share rate and review this podcast to help us get found. Until next time, get out there and get some adventure and we'll see you soon.

"Once we started doing an old cars, then it became tricky. That's kind of the defining roads of the grasshopper adventure series and I think, in some ways, for the development of the gravel bike." Miguel Crawford, Founder and Present of the Grasshopper Adventure Series

That was this week's guest, Miguel Crawford, talking about the Grasshopper Adventure Series and the Old Caz route and the influence it's had on the sport. The grasshopper adventure series has been going on for 20 years, which is an amazing accomplishment by Miguel and his team. I was stoked to talk to Miguel and learn more about how the event got started 20 years ago about what kind of equipment they were riding along the way, how that equipment's evolved and what the future holds for the grasshopper adventure series.

So with that, let's take it away. Miguel, thanks for joining us on the podcast this week.

It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

I always like to start off by finding a little bit about people's cycling background. So how did cycling come into your life?

Well, I grew up playing on multiple team sports. I grew up playing a soccer and basketball and baseball and was a competitive athlete. I graduated high school in 88 and I'd always been interested in bikes. My drafting teacher in junior high was a bike rider When it was time to get a bike, in high school, it was 1988 and I'd always wanted to get a road bike. And my sister at the time said, hey, these guys in Santa Rosa doing this cool thing called mountain biking and said, oh, that sounds even better. And so I bought a used Stumpjumper in 1988 and the timing was perfect in terms of my personal life, looking for something challenging and exploratory and also trying to find a sport that didn't require me to be involved in a team and a pretty much it's been about bikes since then.

Right on. And have you always stayed on the mountain bike side or did you pick up road riding along the way?

Well that's a good question. So when I went to school, Humbolt State and it was my transportation, so I had slicks on and that I'd put them out by putting on these on. I was talking for it. I'd always wanted additional bike second by couldn't afford it and way I would move back to Sonoma county where I grew up in Sebastopol, eventually picked up a used road bikes from a friend of the folks I started riding mountain bikes, road road bikes. They weren't roadies at that time. He kind of saw people being in one camp or another. But for me it was just as fun to begin riding a road bike. So that was probably a 92 started riding road bikes.

Yeah, it is interesting how we do designate ourselves in one camp or the other. I've always had equal footing, I feel like on the road and the mountain that's when my gravel so interesting to me because it's drawing from both sides of the sport.

It didn't take me long to to realize that my love for cycling and in my past experience with competition, you know, well to the other, so I started competing in mountain bikes and then my group of friends, you know, out of Occidental, which is where I was living road road bikes as well, and so the roads in Virginia county though, and she may or may not have seen, I mean it, you may as well be on a mountain bike, so it's extremely challenging. It's not as if I was in UC Davis or in the flood plains and so to me it really was. It didn't seem like that different of a, of an experience, but my true love is mountain biking has, has always been, still is. It's more thrilling to be out there where there's no cars and be on the edge of the world on our little trailer. That's just what I love the most.

Yeah, absolutely. That's something that drives a lot of us. Just the sort of sense of adventure and getting away from it all. So I'm excited to talk to you about the grasshopper series. Literally every single person I've had on the podcast has referenced the grasshopper adventure series as one of the events that one of the many events in the series that they love to go up and do. It's 20 years old, which is unbelievable to me. When I found out about it. When you made the announcement at old cas this year, can you tell us about the origins of the event and how it got started and what it was like back then?

Yeah, for sure. Well, for one, there wasn't the Internet and there wasn't that web platform. You didn't have, you know, wix or whatever. You couldn't spend half an hour and create a webpage and have an event and basically I was as a teacher, I was sitting at my desk, so I was racing on the weekends and training and teaching and I've been a teacher for 23 years right now and so it's. It's been a good balance between my rating and putting on these events and then what I do as an educator. And so I remember the weekend, a weekend and midweek I'd be thinking about my rides. Think the epiphany for me was after driving down to pine slot, which is a beautiful area, but I think we spent six hours of driving and then a hotel and we went to go race and I got had a bad day and ended up in the or and in Fresno behind bulletproof glass and it turns out had a kidney stone and it was a crappy day and a lot of money.

And then I got back to my place and Occidental, I thought, you know, I don't want to drive. I don't want to be in hotels. I don't want to spend money and I also didn't want the experience. But what happens in road races if you're not at the sharp end of the field, the whole rest of the group just rides neutral. And for me it was training and so that sort of, you know, mountain biking. So I thought, well, what if we take. We start from where we live so I don't have to drive. We invite the people who's competitive and we'll have just an agreement that there's no waiting. There's going to be no aid and no support and we'll just see how it goes. And my girlfriend, my wife at the time, my wife would write the results at the end and we'd go drink beer and eat pizza. And um, you know that that's how it started.

Was there a specific route that kind of kicked it all off? Well,

everything started out of Occidental, which many of them do. The very first one include willow creek, but it didn't include old, it was a Sweetwater, which we're doing this in a couple of weeks and then all the way out the river and up will a creek. So from the start it was for me as a mountain biker to look for something that was interesting and fun and had and had dirt so that, that was, that's been, that's been a part of it all along.

Were they the men and women who participated back then? Were they riding mountain bikes or road bikes? What were they on? Mostly?

Well, you know, it's interesting. So at that time I'd say most people on a road bike. So the folks who are, so again, this is before Internet, I tried to call people or mail something so basic, I knew some folks down in Santa Cruz, I knew, uh, uh, Rick Hunter, and then in Santa Rosa there was some folks and then curtis English I think later came from, from Napa area. So the Santa Cruz group, because of their background, we're coming up on cyclocross bikes and then up here we're all on [inaudible] and charge tales with skinny tires. But the first couple ones that included roads were on road bikes. So we're also accustomed to writing road bikes with 25 or 28 had done in many parts of the country. Uh, so that was primarily once we started doing an old cause then it became tricky and I think that's kind of been coming to defining road for a, the grasshopper adventure series. And I think in some ways for the development of, of, of the gravel bike that, that particular, that particular route.

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I was talking to someone the other day about my experience at old cars, which I've done it twice. One was about, I'd say eight years ago on a cross bike with cantilever brakes and then again this year on a unquote gravel bike with disc brakes, 6:50 p size wheels, [inaudible] tires, and it was like night and day. I enjoyed sort of every pedal stroke of it this year. Whereas a member feeling in that first year that I was excited by the adventure, I love the river crossing all the elements of the day, but I was just getting the crap kicked out of me all day.

Oh yeah, right. The gravel bikes are crazy. I mean the diverge I'm on right now and rides and descend better than my old boss off road on the road. It's got fantastic geometry and so at the time he was also around and, and it's, you know, now every, every almost everyone who's making your gravel bike, but there was some resistance. There was the idea of like you have a road bike or you have a mountain bike or do you have a cross bike? And the geometry and the angles and the very aggressive angle than some of them. And then the high bottom bracket, it wasn't, it wasn't perfect, you know, and I think what also added with the grasshopper and old cars is when you add that competitive element and people start to be concerned about what really works best, you know, if you're just cruising and you're on the same bike, it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. But since we're adding that, that [inaudible] like, you know, who's, who's the crusher for the year, you know, people would take it seriously. Um, especially, you know, Glen Fountain, Shane version in from Santa Rosa, Glen's been such a gear freak forever. Tweak it out on the details of tires and every single detail so that, that's kind of attitude as well as the tire manufacturing. I mean, that's, that's been a fantastic change and improvement for all of us. There really weren't many choices back then.

Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. I feel like when disc brakes started to sneak into the cyclocross scene, all of a sudden people started, their eyes started opening as to what those cross bikes can do. And when the frame designers caught up a little bit and made a few tweaks for the kind of more adventurous rising writing and less cyclocross racing, all the sudden these bikes are just opening people's eyes to this gravel writing scene and in a totally new type of writing.

Yeah. And it's putting us where we want it to be, which is off the road. I mean all this, you know, contend with traffic and no one, no one likes to do that. So it's given people the chance to ride roads in their backyard that they may not have written when they had to squeak by on a road bike with 25 c's and deal with floods, you know. And so I understand the mass appeal. Yeah, it's fantastic. And the comfort as well, you know, if you could run a [inaudible] on my boy, the wheels with [inaudible] wt, b's and a little while back and I think he was onset, uh, you know, on this 735 and just looking side by side. And I was like, damn, these wheels and tires just roll fantastically. So yeah, it really is coming down to the wheels and tires these days.

Was there a particular point in the last 20 years where you started to see the equipment really caught up in the participation in the advanced? Just grew?

Yeah. I'm trying to think of a specific Garret's done the last few years. You know, I wish we had photographs of the first eight, 10 years because everyone was the, the, the variety of bikes that would come up. It was just super entertaining and everyone just trying to make it work. I'd say the last three years pretty much everyone showing up with the gravel bike, just kind of the norm. Something happened last year that was interesting. One of the folks who've been doing the hoppers, he said, yeah, I'm buying my first mountain bike. And I looked at him and I thought what dawned on me that people that ride grovel for some people, it's been around long enough that that's the only bike they know and now they're discovering mountain-biking and they're discovering road biking. So I think that's an interesting evolution. Whereas for most of us rode mountain bikes and road bikes and we got into gravel. So, um,

have you, have you considered changing any of the routes given the new types of equipment that are available today? Or is it staying pretty true to the original roots?

True know. I think, you know, we'll talk about later about the branching out to the, to the Mondo event. For me, the hopper has been about Sonoma County, Virginia County and about the community of people. And so, um, it's about writing where we world and the country is a big place so he could go someplace and you could draw this perfect route, but it's, it's not where you live and it's not part of the people were there supporting your vet doesn't really make sense. And so all these are, are, are aware of where we are. So it's also been a big balancing act of making the course of safe and creative and interesting and challenging and also dealing with the fact that they're on open roads. So that's something I'll always taken very seriously. And they've morphed over time to make sure that they're all mostly right hand turns.

For example, people may not have noticed that, but every time you make a left turn you're crossing opposing traffic. So almost all of them go in a counter-clockwise direction, right in a clockwise direction. Think we've nailed it. Pretty sweet spot. King Ridge, you know, for example, that one which has several sections that are now that kind of sums up, you know, the, the trickster role that I'd like to play. I think most people in this area had been writing here 15, 20 years or longer and it never done done King Ridge in that direction. I think even adventures or features of habit sometime. And so that I think that one's perfect. And then I'm looking at doing some other explorations of some areas that got caught. A couple of secrets and a can fill you in on those when plans get near.

You alluded to the hopper. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.

Yeah, sure. Um, well my self, like many others who are a few justice yonder fans can lose huge amount of times. Now that we have google maps and Google Earth, and I'm, and I'm no different, so I have cited my paper Gadgeteers I have quite a collection of roots and uh, so for me, Sonoma County, Mendocino County and Humboldt County are the areas that I've really considered home since, since I was, since I was a kid. I've been looking at changing the format so that we could have a two day event, you know, and I busted possibilities of two days out of one place. So this event's going to be two days, but was camping in the middle. So instead of people driving and parking and doing their event and splitting and we're gonna all be together and my character camp ground in Fort Bragg, so we'll bring stuff out there for people.

It'll be two days of about 75 miles each. And they bought, each of the days will be half gravel. So I think it's just going to be a fantastic two days. You know, when you get into Mendocino County, Humboldt County, it's not hard to find a loop, but to find something about that length, that to loop single loop is tough. I think when I was looking at doing is all one loop. We were looking like a hundred and 35 miles and 15,000 feet of climbing or something and a decreases the number of people that would be interested as well as the logistics of keeping track of people. This was going to be a good one was it gives people a chance to do roads you may see on a map, but it just wouldn't make sense. And I feel like that's ever since I've been writing whether doing mountain bike trips in Downieville or Tahoe or in Moab or crested Butte, I've always been the one to like look at the map. Like, oh my God, where can we go look at this? And for the most part people trusted me to put together things that were, that were interesting. And I still feel like I'm playing that role. Uh, even though it's become more popular for people to go out on their own hosting these events and saying, hey, check out this.

I do feel like it's a big driver for the community. Just like it was back in the early mountain bike days. We all used to sign up for events just to go try new terrain and have someone map it out for us. And I think gravel riders are, are really seeking out those kind of adventures, whether it's a few hours from home or many hours from home. We all want to try new things.

Absolutely. You know, and I think I'm a little. I'm a little Virginia centric where we're buying so much open space and mountains in there. You are in Moran and, and north of San Francisco and in this area. But I think about the amount of people who live east of the rockies. People want to get out of the cities or people who live in big cities. They want to get out. And uh, in those areas there are tons of gravel roads. And I think for the most part, events are happening organically where people live. And say let's, let's do this. So that's cool to see.

I was always curious about your sort of thought process. Do you consider the grasshopper series races or something else?

That's a good question. I've often said they're not racist, but they're harder. It's kind of gone back and forth. I really want it to be something for everyone and I think that they're unique in that you have to coordinate and Ted King and Jessica Bush and Levi, some of the top 10 dam out and then you have people who finished twice as long later. But I think one thing about cycling in these type of events is there's that personal challenge isn't as race, and this was very intentional by me when I started these is people would ride differently. When you say it's a race and people will make decisions in my opinion, that are in their best interests of the group. So I'm really careful about calling it a race. As you know, there was a point standing in a podium, but basically every Wednesday afternoon ride all around the country, people have erases the grasshopper, so they are competitive. They were always meant as competitive training events. It's gone back and forth in terms of the permitting and insurance and also the logistics of actually closing down at an event like you went to her. California. It's not, it's not possible in this area. So there's a couple of reasons why it is purposely a little bit. I'm not clear as to, as to what it is.

No, I personally love, I love how it's called the adventure series and I love in my mind going out there and just having an adventure and I do think it's cool like upfront that it's local pros that are killing it, but for me the races in the middle of the pack somewhere and I'm all about just enjoying the day out there and I have to say that each of the grasshoppers I've done, it's always just been a good day out and when you get to the finish line that's even better.

Yeah, I appreciate that. You know, I've had, I've had the experience, so my oldest kids are 15 and 12 and have a two year old, so there were times at least one year where literally every ride for five months was just a grasshopper. I went from grasshopper to gossip and I did them all and I had the experience of writing initially to try and win them and then writing in the top 10 and then being way in the back, so to be in this group of field. And they became, they became my peers of every single person was giving it as much as when we were in the top 10. And I was. And it was the kind of a light, a light bulb moment. And they were having that same experience as the person that was 45 minutes faster. And I thought that's beautiful, you know, um, in the sense of accomplishment and achievement. And a lot of folks don't see each other all year and they'll come out into a hopper and 20 miles into it there with someone. They're like, Hey Tony, hey, what are you doing? Because the fitness is the ultimate equalizer. And uh, you know, and I think that's one of the beauties as the events gotten larger in terms of numbers, that it's more likely that you're going to end up with similar people, whether it's an old cows or a king rage or super sweet water. Now it should. People telling good stories about that.

Yeah, absolutely. And I do. I don't think that if you call it a race and many of the races we've done on mountain bikes or road bikes when you're off the back, when you're middle of the pack, you're rarely like looking over and having a laugh with someone. There's still that weird race intensity that I think part of it's being in the dirt. Part of it's driving these gravel bikes. Part of it's just these cool events. You just look over and you have a good time. You know, you're not trying to crush the guy next to you for 407th place.

Exactly. And I, and I, one of the things I used to openly joke about when I started this as friends who would, they would do old cars and they wouldn't do the other. And I'm going to Visalia, I want to get my upgrade points from my [inaudible] to my four. I'm like, OK, whatever. So we coined this to profaned to her upgrade points. And uh, that rung true to a lot of people when you look at the movement of gravel and have the type of competition is like, I think it is important to, to acknowledge, uh, the, the top people and to strive for that. But I also don't believe in the minutia of all the age group categories and ability categories so that everyone gets a medal. You know, I don't think that's the experience they're all looking for. And I think that's kind of the direction that it was for a while. It may have all back into that, into some level. I don't know. There's not like an overall governing body for all these events that are, that are popping up, you know, and that, that's a good thing. So um,

yeah, I think it's interesting in the gravel writing community, and we've talked about a little bit before on, on other episodes is it seems like there's a couple of different directions. The way these events are going, there's the kind of four to six hour events and then there's more of the ultra endurance events that are out there and it's going to be interesting to see how it all shakes out and chances are it won't shake out. I think there's room for all types of events for different types of adventures.

I agree. And for different, for different people and for different reasons and for different periods of their life as well. For me, my demographic and almost 50 now and I still like to be fit and compete. So it'd be to show up and race local pro doesn't make sense, you know her last or second to last where I compare my times. But to be able to compete in the 40 to 49 category, I mean there's some super fit guy. He's got a hundred and 50 guys show up at old cars. So there was no podium, but that group of 100 or the top 25 people under 40 or 49 and they know who those people are and they know where they rank and so you're allowed to be competitive without that being the ultimate motivator, you know. So I think that's a, that's a beautiful thing in sport in general and I think it's important to cultivate that in, in our events and the grasshoppers and you know, that that's important to me.

So is there one event that stands out as your personal favorite?

Well, [inaudible] just for a little piece. So I'm not quite the blogger but on facebook, you know, it feels to me right now the Sweetwater, this one coming up and I'll, and I'll tell you why it's because it's just weird. It's like four of our biggest clients is basically a road ride, but then you throw in the middle which is gravel. So it's what I call upper and they're like, oh shit, it's mixed birthday because you can't say no and you gotta go do it. So we do a huge road ride, but then we do old guys in the middle, which means, you know, it's crazy to just ride a gravel bike because you only have that, you know, eight, 10 mile section the gravel, uh, but if you just ride your road bike that it's kinda tricky. And then the fact that we go from the river valley, we do all caps, we have the creek crossing, we climbed to the top of a Fort Ross with the Myers grade descent, which on a clear day it's gotta be one of the best defense in the world and it finishes with the Coleman Valet Con. But truly the best grasshopper for me is the one that I just wasn't really recently did. I mean it, all. Loops that are just that they're all fantastic and they're all a little bit different.

And are there some memories of the last 20 years that stand out to you?

Oh yeah, for sure. This year, pulling off old cast, it's successfully is a big memory. The size of things and just the frenetic energy around it. Um, you'll feel satisfied about that. I say some of the most inclement weather days stand out the most. We had a couple of those last year, I'd say probably the most striking, whether one was, I can't remember the year, but there was a year where everything was flooded and tomatoes area and we're doing Chileno volley and in that area it's interesting because um, the oftentimes check the rain, but in that area you have to check the tide tables because the creeks and highway one flood based upon high tide. And so when we rolled out towards valley for this, when we went down into freestone volley Ford road into front, into Franklin school, the [inaudible] cough was fine, but it didn't rain that much today.

But the tides went up. So by the end of the day and we came through. No, that's not true. It was flood. Actually. I remember that there was a Volkswagen bus that was. So it was about the height of the middle part of your down to at the start of the day. And then at the finishing day, myself and Devin I guess, and a few others were coming through valley for. And I remember him falling over and he actually completely submerged and this was on a paved road, so we're riding through a flood and then uh, and then the sprint, which is like six of us entailed going up the freestone valley Ford Cutoff and when that floods it actually has a current. And so you re, I mean the roads size of a small county road, but you had to literally ride right in the middle because if he fell in the ditch, I mean it's eight, 10 feet deep.

So that one, just because of the miraculousness of us pulling it off really, really stands out to me. I should've, I should've made notes that since, I mean 20 years of five hoppers a year. So that's a lot of. Yeah. Well, I think another, another story is one of the cold days. I'm King Ridge for one of, by, by one of my best friends in the old Lewis. It was doing pretty well. He was ahead of me actually. I rolled into Jenner to get some food. It's one of those days when it was so cold and you had to stop because we didn't have hot food or drinks there and he was pulled over at the market instead of getting like coffee and a snickers or whatever, he was buying a huge piece of smoked salmon, like all I could think about was to buy the first thing he saw and there was a guy standing there, so I think he spent eight, 10 bucks, says Sam and on the side of the road. That's symbolic of people just being completely empty and a emptying out there.

Yeah, I mean it's, it's why people talk about it for three or four days after every grasshopper. Just these memories of the adventure of being out there. I think that's a good way to sum it up.

Yeah. We didn't use to have any water or support for people, so that made it a little extra extra challenging. I feel fine offering Osmo and Goo and, and, and, and sponsors product in nutrition. I feel like that's still not, not, not cheating, both having cold beer for people, but the top. Nobody minds that too much.

I think everybody appreciates it a lot. It's amazing. I mean 20 years. That's so awesome and I can't express enough how cool that is. I think a lot of people would love to know, do you have any tips for first time event organizers to help them kind of pull off something successfully?

I'm a funny guy to us that as I don't have a business degree and totally organically I'm, I'm doing it where you live and what their core is is, is really important. Obviously from a business point of view, there's other things you need you need to look at, but I think just starting on doing a route that's fun to ride and focusing on that, you know, looking out after people just enough so that they're safe and covering your bike, but make it a little bit edgy, I think, uh, is important in this type of this type of event. Putting it on in a way that's not going to create conflict with other users in your area, whether it's hikers request or people on the road. I think that's something that we always have to be mindful of. When we looked around 100, 200, 300 cyclists out there,

that seems like you guys have done a great job of embracing the small community of Occidental in a way that, as you said, 600 people can come into town and try not to disrupt things too much while still bringing economic value to the community.

That's the goal of doing that. Exactly. I'm pretty much, I mean we took over the town and then hopefully they see it as, as a, as a plus. So, you know, it's not business as usual. Um, I know people love and look forward to coming to that town and I think, yeah, taking a destination that you can have a relationship with that, that is important. I'm really looking forward to doing this one again to Mendocino where it's kind of spreading out and connecting with different people. I know up in that way, giving people a chance to, again, I think one of the things it wants to do an event a few times, it's kind of a known thing and a known factor. Although there's always like, how fast can you do it? This Mendocino [inaudible], there's certain pieces when we look at them apps, but it's like you're out there when you're writing Sherwood road, you have 35 miles of dirt from the Ridge on wheels to the coast, you know, so both of both sections of that gives you this really sense of exploration and so that's important to me and the next phase is continuing to have things that have that, that unknown factor and a little bit step by step outside of the comfort zone.

Do you see more events coming in to the grasshopper series?

I don't know. I think just this event's going to be unique and stand on its own. I think people are. There's been a lot of interest in it. I think after the first year, the report back will be that that was a pretty amazing experience and be able to end in camp right on the ocean. It's not. People aren't quite that accountant accustomed to leaving. They're leaving their things and two day events. Yeah, I was something else. Interesting. You know, there's something in October that might be going on in the second day, wouldn't be necessarily a big ride, I think back to back days and then travels a little bit taxing. So something a little bit more social or educational, cultural on the second day and a time to unwind and just be together and the first day of big riding. But yeah, cut some ideas.

Nice.

Hey, but why not? Why not a week? Why not a week long? Right?

Yeah, absolutely. If we can all find the time off from our families a weekend thing. Yeah.

I think that's been, that's been the key of this, of the, of the nor cal community with this stuff as well. I really appreciate, you know, as people, a carve out the time and their daily lives to make time for them, for themselves, you know, to do it their love and keeps her passion gone. I think that all makes us better people with our relationships in our families and our work and really that's where it comes from for me, uh, as, as the teacher, you know, it's like giving us something because we all play bigger roles, more important roles outside of the cycling. And uh, to me it's a, if it's all about biking, it's just a little bit too narrow. I think it's a vehicle for us to be in the world and uh, the northern California cycling community, I'm just impressed with the men and women who just like do so much for each other and for the community and while at the same time finding times to get out and shred and that speaks volumes to the people here.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's pretty natural point to finish our conversation today. I think there's, I mean it sounds like there's really cool future ahead for the grasshopper adventure series and a couple of new tricks up your sleeve and obviously if anybody hasn't been out to one of the events, encourage you to get out there. They're a part of California is beautiful.

Yeah, I appreciate it. And let me, let me not forget to give a plug for, uh, for, for Lake Sonoma, it's like 27 miles of just ripping on single track. It's like a flow trail and uh, the hoppers is about being able to share it on every slide, you know. So you've got your cross bike or mountain bike and your road bike.

It's a good place to start out. Where's the best place to find information on the series?

Our webpage is the best grasshopper adventure series a, you know, follow us on Instagram, a grasshopper adventure series, our facebook page. I tried to keep things active there as a, as a place where people gather information, but our website's got everything I need to know.

I'll make sure to have everything in the show notes on that and that really appreciate you spending the time with us today.

Hey, my pleasure

So that was great. Talking to Miguel this week, the grasshopper adventure series has meant so much to northern California and to the gravel cycling community, I hope would be event organizers. Learned a few tips from Miguel about how to put on a great longstanding event. And how to integrate into a local community and in some late breaking news, I just learned that there Morin Museum of bicycling in Fairfax is interviewing Miguel on April 26. I'll put the link to the events in the show notes, but I want to encourage everybody to go out and see Miguel in person and see some of the great damages he's captured over the years hosting the grasshopper series. As always, thanks for listening. If you have any feedback, you can hit us on instagram at the gravel ride. Shoot me a note at Craig at the gravel ride that bike. And also don't forget to share rate and review this podcast to help us get found. Until next time, get out there and get some adventure and we'll see you soon.

]]>32:21cleanGrasshopper Adventure Series founder, Miguel Crawford talks about the 20 year history of the series and the evolution of gravel cycling in that period. fullFormer Pros Dave Zabriskie and Ryan Steers talk about their new Gravel Camp: DZ Nuthouse and the secret SoCal trails they call homeTue, 27 Mar 2018 22:19:19 +0000Episode Links:

"I've been able to find things that people that have lived here their whole life, It's amazing, like I just feel like to explore, so I'm finding some roads, dirt stuff that's blown people's lunch that have lived here their whole life." Dave Zabriskie, Former Professional Road Cyclist

So that was former professional road, cyclist, Dave Zabriskie, talking about some of the secret trails he's found down in the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles. I've got dave and his business partner, Ryan Steers, who's a former professional mountain bike racer on the podcast, the two of them partner for a gravel camp in southern California, which sounds really cool. I was excited to talk to the guys just as they've both come from different sides of the sport, which I think is pretty typical for a lot of us as a lot of mountain bikers coming to gravel and also a lot of roadies, but this is an opportunity to talk to two guys who have done it in the professional ranks and hear what they have say about gravel. So with that, let's jump right in. All right. This week on the podcast we've got Ryan and Dave. Ryan and Dave, thanks for joining us. You're welcome. Right on. I always like to start the conversation by, by finding out how you guys came to gravel cycling.

This is Dave years ago. Actually. I built the, before they had gravel bikes, I'll build a mountain bike or rigid and then I just put dropbox on it and I took that to Europe because a, I wanted to have some adventure in between the racing and the regular road trainings. It was something I've been toying with for quite a long time. And then, uh, it was pretty cool and they started a couple of people that seemed like a, it almost seemed to me like the touch around the crusher was this event that came along where you had a mix of surfaces and he was like bringing whatever bike you think of work. It kind of seemed to me that they started building bikes for events like that, which kind of turned into the gravel thing. It's been cool for me because it's something I've been doing even before gravel bikes.

Yeah, I think you're right. I talk to a lot of guys who are sort of banging around on it with events like that are out here in northern California. The grasshopper series has been around for 20 years and it really wasn't until the last five years that the bikes were really suited for what that race course was offering. That's super cool. How about you Ryan? So you got a little bit different background, not on the roadside per se.

Yeah, I've always been a mountain biker and I was uh, working at his shop. Was that maybe four or five years ago when the first gravel bikes really started to come out? I think it was like the salsa warbird that we were carrying and I had no idea what to think of it. I thought it was just something people in the midwest it on gravel roads and then flash forward two or three years later starting to do the Belgian waffle ride and ride my road bike a lot on the dirt and trails. We were doing basically everything on the road bikes with 28 and you know, after like five or six slots, you're just getting a little frustrated and then finally realized that there was some proper bikes coming up that could handle everything around here in Los Angeles, there's a lot of single track and trails and fire roads, so just got drawn into gravel by the ability to connect to everything. It's cool because you can go out for a ride and you know, red fire roads and trails and have what would be a pretty, a pretty boring mountain bike ride. Actually be a really fun ride on a gravel bike. Started to do some of those events to Belgian waffle ride. They've talked me into the, the crusher or a couple of years ago and yeah, I got hooked on that and the whole atmosphere that the gravel races bring was a really attractive. So it drew me in.

Yeah, absolutely. Were there things you can point to on the bike that really made the difference?

Yeah, the tire cleaner or being able to run [inaudible] sorry, go ahead. The tubeless technology as well as just the riding a road bike on that stuff. You'd be flattened all the time just to be able to tie everything together now like you can still on that [inaudible] but I have you can go out and pair ass on the road all day and then if you see a trailer you can hit that and feel pretty fast as well, like a. So it's just fun to tie it all together. But I'd say the tires is tires. It's probably been the biggest improvement I think is really interesting. Platform.

Are you running 700 sees on there or 650b?

Yeah, just stick with the 650. I thought about putting some 700. Then I kind of like the cushiness those six [inaudible] so that I don't notice too much of a loss. Yeah.

How about you Ryan? What? What's, what's your equipment look like? Yeah, I'm on the uh, I'm reading the giant tcx set up with a, got a 48 on the front and the 38 and the rear, which is pretty nice around here. A little traction when it sandy, but then also roles pretty fast on the pavement. I set up a lot. And is that a 700 seat will set? It is. It's a 700. Yeah. It's um, like a, like a little more aggressive. Ryan's eight feet tall. I'm six and a half feet tall, so a hundred milliliters of expose posts. So I get, I get like an inch of travel on post. It's pretty sweet. It looks like you're on 24 inch wheels. Exactly. Yeah, right at 29 and everyone's like, is that a [inaudible]? 50 a 27 [inaudible] 700. I found myself in dance camp. I've got an OPEN with 650 bs and I tend to just leave those on there even though I have a 700 seat we'll set kicking around. It's part laziness and part in northern cal. Like the trails are fairly rough. I think it's, it's similar to what you guys experienced down there to like a fast fire roads, some single track here and there, but we have decent amount of steeps here. So I find having that v tire volumes just preventing me from flooding and makes it a really fun bike to throw around.

So I got a controversial question for you. La Sucks for cycling or false.

I think the whole intent is the, uh, the irony, right? Yeah, absolutely.

I was telling Ryan, you know, I'm, I'm lucky enough to be married to a woman who hails from Topanga, California and still has family down there. And previously I probably would have answered yes to La sucks recycling. But after spending a decade visiting Topanga, I've just fallen in love with the riding down there. I think you guys are really blessed.

Tell us a little bit about the various bits of terrain that people not familiar with the La area might not be aware even exists for gravel riding down there.

One of the most famous trail that connects Santa Monica go about 70 miles north to the Santa Monica Mountains. Uh, and that's pretty fun. A lot of that is about lions carefully, but there's an unlimited number of fire roads just all through Malibu that, uh, you can link up. And then over, I live right by Chesboro and there's tons of fire roads and writing. So once you start connecting the fire roads and single truck, I mean you can rod from Santa Monica to see me to Malibu with hardly touching any pavement in between. It's pretty cool.

Yeah. How about you, Dave?

I've been able to find things that people that have lived here their whole lives are like. And how did you find this and what is it like? It's amazing. Like I just like to explore our area, so I'm finding some roads and dirt stuff that blowing people's minds that have lived here their whole life. Topanga towards Malibu along the backbone trail. When I wrote it over the holidays, I was just shocked at how much open space there was, the views you were getting there and the fact that I didn't see anyone. 14,000,000 people in Los Angeles County and you run it on a weekday and you'll maybe run into one or two cyclists or a jogger is empty.

Yeah. You guys are lucky to ride out of that area. I think it's really something special when I haven't seen down there, and correct me if I'm wrong, is a lot of gravel events, whether they're rides or races right in that area. Is there a reason for it is it's sort of a, you know, as Dave mentioned, private land that you end up getting on?

Yeah. I'm not sure there is a few. Like I think they're just more uh, like you'd have to live here to know about. Um, I'm not sure they're trying to bring in people from all over the place. OK. So more like sort of shop based rides that are pretty big but not necessarily broadcast. Yeah. Like there's one in Ohio, the mob shop they have, they have some good events up there that are really cool and then a federal or his work has really cool events. There's one in redlands coming up but never run out of stuff to explore down here. Like it's just so gigantic. I've done the gravel mob riding. Hi. The last couple years, and I love that one and another, another area of the country where it's like spectacular, 60 mile loop or whatever it is, great trails, which combined like fun fire roads, both climbing into sense and then a shot of Tequila before that last, a single track to set. I think it was a nice touch. Our area is really focused on the road riding out here and just on the pavement, so I think we're just. We're trying to get people off that more. There's so much more to see than than the roads, which is a shame that most people don't get off of them, so we're just trying to bring people onto the dirt a little more. There's a lot out there.

Yes. You guys are clearly who are big advocates for gravel cycling. What do you see are the hesitations from people, whether they're in the road camp or the mountain bike camp to try this new part of the sport out?

I mean, if you're a real, real hard-core Roadie, I mean just the thought of getting your shoes [inaudible] sometimes it's scary for me. It's pretty a simple. I just don't want to deal with cars, those fire roads or they're a lot safer, so that's kind of what draws me to it as I don't have to look behind my shoulder every two seconds, but I mean, some of these guys, you just have to, uh, introduce them to it. Like I've done a few group rides where there'll be a really short, smooth section and I take the train to take them on there and they get pretty excited and then they wanted to kind of get interested like what bikes that I get, what's, how do I do this, how do I do that? It's just kind of getting somebody toes wet a little bit and then they see the light.

Yeah. It seems to be a common theme with people I've talked to. It's like once they give it a try, they get over to get over that fear of getting off road. If you're, if they're on the road side, all of a sudden they realized for all the benefits you just described, that it's really the place to be. If you've got this kind of terrain in your backyard, getting lost out there too, so you're not really going to get lost, but if you take a wrong turn, you could end up, you know, down at the beach and then find yourself three hours from where you thought you were going to end up the wrong side of original line and all of a sudden you're nowhere near where you think you're going to be. Exactly. Bedside in Malibu.

Yeah, I think you're right. You know when you guys were mentioning, you know the idea of getting lost and how gravel riding, there's this sort of adventure when you're getting out there. I think that's one of the things that's creating this big opportunity for events and otherwise group rides just because it's nice to have someone show you some new terrain and it really adds to your repertoire if you learn some new trails, really one bike. That ties a lot of things together. When I got the bike, I didn't think I'd write it as much as I have been. Really replaces almost everything to do jumps. I've been doing them all my gravel bike. If you'd been looking at my instagram so it can do everything. What, what did we decide on? Is that getting Rad are getting stoked? Yeah, and I mean it seems like the sort of emerging gravel cycling scene is also opening up some post professional cycling career opportunities for some of your former co-workers in the Peloton. I think that sort of visuals of adventure really makes sense for a lot of the cycling brand. So if you've got a guy who's got no reputation or history in the sport and then he's out there getting out there in the woods and testing the equipment. Uh, I just think it's sort of a natural tie in for a lot of these bike brands to want to stay affiliated with them when they get to sell on other bikes to buy company. Love it because it's, you know, not many people have and gravel bike yet. So they're excited to get people on gravel bike out and you know, most people have a mountain bike or road bike and you know, who doesn't love to get a new bikes.

Exactly. Although the dirty little secret is, is as you sort of alluded to Dave, once you get one of these gravel bikes, you find out you can ride on the road and the dirt just as well, and you might start shelving your road bike.

Yeah. Hey, so you guys are starting at a really exciting new project in the next couple of months. Um, with the gravel camp. Can you guys tell me about what inspired that and what it's all about?

You have to commit yourself to gravel because it's, it's kind of a therapeutic. Uh, I mean it has been therapeutic for me. It's very, uh, I've always been crazy, but, uh, this has helped me from going insane type of things. So we're just inviting people to come, uh, commit themselves to our asylum, which takes a place here in the Santa Monica Mountains. And uh, hopefully if they commit themselves hard enough, they can come out, uh, you know, a little bit of sanity or maybe less. We're not quite sure what will happen yet. So it's a, it's a three day adventure, right? It's a Monday to Thursday gravel camp. Uh, we're doing all the meals at Publix for, we'll stop on a long ride, one day includes lodging, support, snack food, and we're going to show people some of the stuff that the Santa Monica mountains has to offer. It's a without the fear of getting lost or not knowing where to go and, which has been fun without a lot of funds coming in from out of town, but we've been taking around and showing them and just kind of blowing their minds with what's out here and like kind of help foster the idea of how we should really just get people out and from what we have in our backyard here because it's so amazing. And a lot of people go to Spain and do these big, uh, trips with the similar terrain and weather that we have here. And it's, you know, we're close to lax. It's the weather's nice or in southern California. So it's got all the conveniences of a big city and not that far away for every one that's easy to get to. But uh, they're, you're gonna feel miles up in the mountains.

That sounds great. What are those rides going to look like? So if I'm, if I'm training and trying to get myself prepared to join the asylum down there, what am I, what do I need to get in my legs to uh, survive those three days.

It's definitely not a race pace type situation. So I wouldn't say it's something everybody could do, but I'd say most everybody could do. There'll be plenty of regroup. It'd be pretty casual pace. If you want to push yourself, you're free to do that on the uphills, not the downhills. Our goal isn't to split up a group and making everyone kill themselves. It's the nature and find cool things and have good adventures and have good times.

And what does that Queen Stage look like in terms of mileage and elevation gain?

Malibu there that we've got set up. It's Kinda the best of everything that Malibu has. Often I'll do creek state park through a blend of some really fun page sections and that's going to be. We will leave early, but it's probably going to be 70, eighty miles and probably close to 10,000 feet of climbing with a lunch stop thrown in the middle in Malibu at some. A, a beautiful little place kind of up in the woods there. So was going to be support and regroups and everything, so it's not going to be a death march by any means, but it'll be a long day with a lot of climate within general. You've got to be. There's some 3000 feet to the top from the ocean. So just to get over there, some pretty good climbs a built in.

Yeah. There's no way to avoid that coastal range if you're trying to get out of there.

We got free helicopter service. Cool. For all guests. I'll guess a, you're just responsible for calling nine one one on your own and then you guys are going to go up into, uh, into Topanga. It looks like one day. Yeah. Topanga is pretty close to publish work, so it's a pretty easy job up there. But then once you get into Panga, you've got a really spectacular view. The downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica and it's a really pretty place to ride because you can see so much to the urban area below you, but there's tons of fire roads and trails up there and then like, think we're going to have to throw in a fun little coffee. Banana bread stopped. It's a Topanga Creek outposts of a little hidden gem bike shops up in Topanga that, uh, has done a lot to foster the cycling community up there. Yeah, absolutely.

I actually credit Chris and his instagram feed for kind of getting me into the sport in many ways.

Great job of getting people on the bikes. He's so welcoming to everyone that wants to ride and they do a Saturday morning ride for all scale levels. It's, I mean, I credit him with show me, get me into racing and showing me all the trails up there. There's a ton of hidden stuff that they're uncovering every week, which was really cool that you can have a bike shop in Topanga and do a ride every week until, you know, six, seven years later be finding new trails. It's really neat. Yeah, I think for anybody down there in that region, region or anybody visiting, hitting that Saturday ride is a real special treat. I found they've been inviting to me in any bike I've shown up on. So I've showed up on a mountain bike, have borrowed a bike, a fat bike from them. I've written a cyclocross bike on, on that Saturday ride, and across the board of the 20 or 30 riders that are out there, you're going to see almost every genre of bike represented every Saturday. And somehow I don't manage this to all work together.

Anything else that our listeners to know about the gravel camp, how many people are you accepting and what are the dates for the upcoming camps?

The first one we're going to keep really, really small to a handful of people ideally to probably 12 or less to keep it, to keep it around 10 or so routers. We don't get to split up and we'll have a couple other ride leaders as well surrounding them to keep the group together. But the goal is to keep it small and intimate. And you know, we did a, it's hard to keep a bunch of people together. We did a group that, I guess it was about 50 and things get a little more, uh, more spread out in hard to wrangle. So we want people to have fun and enjoy themselves but not be afraid of getting lost or missing a regroup or anything like that are getting left out in the woods through the mountain lions.

And what's the website that people can check out to find out more?

Yeah. The first one is uh, gonna be in April from the sixteenth to the nineteenth. It's Kinda, we sandwiched in between those and wall fluoride and Sea Otter. So if you're doing any of those events, it's kind of a fun stop in between. My legs are going to be pretty cooked on that first day from Belgium waffle run, which is also a blast, but definitely not uv. So yeah, April the first one and the website is these net house.com. You can go check it out there and he's got the details and a bunch of photos too because I think those are way more, were more valuable than writing things about the route and then people can look and see, see where they're going to be riding a big selling point.

Yeah, absolutely. And I know you guys are active on instagram. Where can they follow you there? Uh, we've got the house accounts and then David got his accounts and I'm at our steers, the letter r and then s, t e r s I just did a sweep posts with some old action figure, a founder of a Kevin Costner if anyone wants to take a look there. Yeah, we've got a couple instagram accounts. You have to follow it. And one is very mysterious. That makes me, it makes no sense.

Right on guys, I've appreciate you joining me on the podcast this week and uh, you know, I wish you all the best on the camps and I hope they're filled to capacity and hopefully I can come down and pedal with you guys sometime.

Thanks Craig. See at the Mob Shop probably right on,

So that was a blast. Talking to Dave and Ryan. I think their gravel camps are going to be really a lot of fun. The Santa Monica Mountains have tons of trails, just looping between Malibu and Topanga and Calabasas. Definitely join them for the camps. Follow them on instagram to check out some of those trails are followed them on Strava. I highly recommend checking out that part of the country and that's for us here at the gravel ride. Definitely follow us on instagram at the gravel ride. You can shoot me a note at Craig at the gravel ride that bike, or follow me on Strava. I'd love to get your feedback, ratings, etc.

"I've been able to find things that people that have lived here their whole life, It's amazing, like I just feel like to explore, so I'm finding some roads, dirt stuff that's blown people's lunch that have lived here their whole life." Dave Zabriskie, Former Professional Road Cyclist

So that was former professional road, cyclist, Dave Zabriskie, talking about some of the secret trails he's found down in the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles. I've got dave and his business partner, Ryan Steers, who's a former professional mountain bike racer on the podcast, the two of them partner for a gravel camp in southern California, which sounds really cool. I was excited to talk to the guys just as they've both come from different sides of the sport, which I think is pretty typical for a lot of us as a lot of mountain bikers coming to gravel and also a lot of roadies, but this is an opportunity to talk to two guys who have done it in the professional ranks and hear what they have say about gravel. So with that, let's jump right in. All right. This week on the podcast we've got Ryan and Dave. Ryan and Dave, thanks for joining us. You're welcome. Right on. I always like to start the conversation by, by finding out how you guys came to gravel cycling.

This is Dave years ago. Actually. I built the, before they had gravel bikes, I'll build a mountain bike or rigid and then I just put dropbox on it and I took that to Europe because a, I wanted to have some adventure in between the racing and the regular road trainings. It was something I've been toying with for quite a long time. And then, uh, it was pretty cool and they started a couple of people that seemed like a, it almost seemed to me like the touch around the crusher was this event that came along where you had a mix of surfaces and he was like bringing whatever bike you think of work. It kind of seemed to me that they started building bikes for events like that, which kind of turned into the gravel thing. It's been cool for me because it's something I've been doing even before gravel bikes.

Yeah, I think you're right. I talk to a lot of guys who are sort of banging around on it with events like that are out here in northern California. The grasshopper series has been around for 20 years and it really wasn't until the last five years that the bikes were really suited for what that race course was offering. That's super cool. How about you Ryan? So you got a little bit different background, not on the roadside per se.

Yeah, I've always been a mountain biker and I was uh, working at his shop. Was that maybe four or five years ago when the first gravel bikes really started to come out? I think it was like the salsa warbird that we were carrying and I had no idea what to think of it. I thought it was just something people in the midwest it on gravel roads and then flash forward two or three years later starting to do the Belgian waffle ride and ride my road bike a lot on the dirt and trails. We were doing basically everything on the road bikes with 28 and you know, after like five or six slots, you're just getting a little frustrated and then finally realized that there was some proper bikes coming up that could handle everything around here in Los Angeles, there's a lot of single track and trails and fire roads, so just got drawn into gravel by the ability to connect to everything. It's cool because you can go out for a ride and you know, red fire roads and trails and have what would be a pretty, a pretty boring mountain bike ride. Actually be a really fun ride on a gravel bike. Started to do some of those events to Belgian waffle ride. They've talked me into the, the crusher or a couple of years ago and yeah, I got hooked on that and the whole atmosphere that the gravel races bring was a really attractive. So it drew me in.

Yeah, absolutely. Were there things you can point to on the bike that really made the difference?

Yeah, the tire cleaner or being able to run [inaudible] sorry, go ahead. The tubeless technology as well as just the riding a road bike on that stuff. You'd be flattened all the time just to be able to tie everything together now like you can still on that [inaudible] but I have you can go out and pair ass on the road all day and then if you see a trailer you can hit that and feel pretty fast as well, like a. So it's just fun to tie it all together. But I'd say the tires is tires. It's probably been the biggest improvement I think is really interesting. Platform.

Are you running 700 sees on there or 650b?

Yeah, just stick with the 650. I thought about putting some 700. Then I kind of like the cushiness those six [inaudible] so that I don't notice too much of a loss. Yeah.

How about you Ryan? What? What's, what's your equipment look like? Yeah, I'm on the uh, I'm reading the giant tcx set up with a, got a 48 on the front and the 38 and the rear, which is pretty nice around here. A little traction when it sandy, but then also roles pretty fast on the pavement. I set up a lot. And is that a 700 seat will set? It is. It's a 700. Yeah. It's um, like a, like a little more aggressive. Ryan's eight feet tall. I'm six and a half feet tall, so a hundred milliliters of expose posts. So I get, I get like an inch of travel on post. It's pretty sweet. It looks like you're on 24 inch wheels. Exactly. Yeah, right at 29 and everyone's like, is that a [inaudible]? 50 a 27 [inaudible] 700. I found myself in dance camp. I've got an OPEN with 650 bs and I tend to just leave those on there even though I have a 700 seat we'll set kicking around. It's part laziness and part in northern cal. Like the trails are fairly rough. I think it's, it's similar to what you guys experienced down there to like a fast fire roads, some single track here and there, but we have decent amount of steeps here. So I find having that v tire volumes just preventing me from flooding and makes it a really fun bike to throw around.

So I got a controversial question for you. La Sucks for cycling or false.

I think the whole intent is the, uh, the irony, right? Yeah, absolutely.

I was telling Ryan, you know, I'm, I'm lucky enough to be married to a woman who hails from Topanga, California and still has family down there. And previously I probably would have answered yes to La sucks recycling. But after spending a decade visiting Topanga, I've just fallen in love with the riding down there. I think you guys are really blessed.

Tell us a little bit about the various bits of terrain that people not familiar with the La area might not be aware even exists for gravel riding down there.

One of the most famous trail that connects Santa Monica go about 70 miles north to the Santa Monica Mountains. Uh, and that's pretty fun. A lot of that is about lions carefully, but there's an unlimited number of fire roads just all through Malibu that, uh, you can link up. And then over, I live right by Chesboro and there's tons of fire roads and writing. So once you start connecting the fire roads and single truck, I mean you can rod from Santa Monica to see me to Malibu with hardly touching any pavement in between. It's pretty cool.

Yeah. How about you, Dave?

I've been able to find things that people that have lived here their whole lives are like. And how did you find this and what is it like? It's amazing. Like I just like to explore our area, so I'm finding some roads and dirt stuff that blowing people's minds that have lived here their whole life. Topanga towards Malibu along the backbone trail. When I wrote it over the holidays, I was just shocked at how much open space there was, the views you were getting there and the fact that I didn't see anyone. 14,000,000 people in Los Angeles County and you run it on a weekday and you'll maybe run into one or two cyclists or a jogger is empty.

Yeah. You guys are lucky to ride out of that area. I think it's really something special when I haven't seen down there, and correct me if I'm wrong, is a lot of gravel events, whether they're rides or races right in that area. Is there a reason for it is it's sort of a, you know, as Dave mentioned, private land that you end up getting on?

Yeah. I'm not sure there is a few. Like I think they're just more uh, like you'd have to live here to know about. Um, I'm not sure they're trying to bring in people from all over the place. OK. So more like sort of shop based rides that are pretty big but not necessarily broadcast. Yeah. Like there's one in Ohio, the mob shop they have, they have some good events up there that are really cool and then a federal or his work has really cool events. There's one in redlands coming up but never run out of stuff to explore down here. Like it's just so gigantic. I've done the gravel mob riding. Hi. The last couple years, and I love that one and another, another area of the country where it's like spectacular, 60 mile loop or whatever it is, great trails, which combined like fun fire roads, both climbing into sense and then a shot of Tequila before that last, a single track to set. I think it was a nice touch. Our area is really focused on the road riding out here and just on the pavement, so I think we're just. We're trying to get people off that more. There's so much more to see than than the roads, which is a shame that most people don't get off of them, so we're just trying to bring people onto the dirt a little more. There's a lot out there.

Yes. You guys are clearly who are big advocates for gravel cycling. What do you see are the hesitations from people, whether they're in the road camp or the mountain bike camp to try this new part of the sport out?

I mean, if you're a real, real hard-core Roadie, I mean just the thought of getting your shoes [inaudible] sometimes it's scary for me. It's pretty a simple. I just don't want to deal with cars, those fire roads or they're a lot safer, so that's kind of what draws me to it as I don't have to look behind my shoulder every two seconds, but I mean, some of these guys, you just have to, uh, introduce them to it. Like I've done a few group rides where there'll be a really short, smooth section and I take the train to take them on there and they get pretty excited and then they wanted to kind of get interested like what bikes that I get, what's, how do I do this, how do I do that? It's just kind of getting somebody toes wet a little bit and then they see the light.

Yeah. It seems to be a common theme with people I've talked to. It's like once they give it a try, they get over to get over that fear of getting off road. If you're, if they're on the road side, all of a sudden they realized for all the benefits you just described, that it's really the place to be. If you've got this kind of terrain in your backyard, getting lost out there too, so you're not really going to get lost, but if you take a wrong turn, you could end up, you know, down at the beach and then find yourself three hours from where you thought you were going to end up the wrong side of original line and all of a sudden you're nowhere near where you think you're going to be. Exactly. Bedside in Malibu.

Yeah, I think you're right. You know when you guys were mentioning, you know the idea of getting lost and how gravel riding, there's this sort of adventure when you're getting out there. I think that's one of the things that's creating this big opportunity for events and otherwise group rides just because it's nice to have someone show you some new terrain and it really adds to your repertoire if you learn some new trails, really one bike. That ties a lot of things together. When I got the bike, I didn't think I'd write it as much as I have been. Really replaces almost everything to do jumps. I've been doing them all my gravel bike. If you'd been looking at my instagram so it can do everything. What, what did we decide on? Is that getting Rad are getting stoked? Yeah, and I mean it seems like the sort of emerging gravel cycling scene is also opening up some post professional cycling career opportunities for some of your former co-workers in the Peloton. I think that sort of visuals of adventure really makes sense for a lot of the cycling brand. So if you've got a guy who's got no reputation or history in the sport and then he's out there getting out there in the woods and testing the equipment. Uh, I just think it's sort of a natural tie in for a lot of these bike brands to want to stay affiliated with them when they get to sell on other bikes to buy company. Love it because it's, you know, not many people have and gravel bike yet. So they're excited to get people on gravel bike out and you know, most people have a mountain bike or road bike and you know, who doesn't love to get a new bikes.

Exactly. Although the dirty little secret is, is as you sort of alluded to Dave, once you get one of these gravel bikes, you find out you can ride on the road and the dirt just as well, and you might start shelving your road bike.

Yeah. Hey, so you guys are starting at a really exciting new project in the next couple of months. Um, with the gravel camp. Can you guys tell me about what inspired that and what it's all about?

You have to commit yourself to gravel because it's, it's kind of a therapeutic. Uh, I mean it has been therapeutic for me. It's very, uh, I've always been crazy, but, uh, this has helped me from going insane type of things. So we're just inviting people to come, uh, commit themselves to our asylum, which takes a place here in the Santa Monica Mountains. And uh, hopefully if they commit themselves hard enough, they can come out, uh, you know, a little bit of sanity or maybe less. We're not quite sure what will happen yet. So it's a, it's a three day adventure, right? It's a Monday to Thursday gravel camp. Uh, we're doing all the meals at Publix for, we'll stop on a long ride, one day includes lodging, support, snack food, and we're going to show people some of the stuff that the Santa Monica mountains has to offer. It's a without the fear of getting lost or not knowing where to go and, which has been fun without a lot of funds coming in from out of town, but we've been taking around and showing them and just kind of blowing their minds with what's out here and like kind of help foster the idea of how we should really just get people out and from what we have in our backyard here because it's so amazing. And a lot of people go to Spain and do these big, uh, trips with the similar terrain and weather that we have here. And it's, you know, we're close to lax. It's the weather's nice or in southern California. So it's got all the conveniences of a big city and not that far away for every one that's easy to get to. But uh, they're, you're gonna feel miles up in the mountains.

That sounds great. What are those rides going to look like? So if I'm, if I'm training and trying to get myself prepared to join the asylum down there, what am I, what do I need to get in my legs to uh, survive those three days.

It's definitely not a race pace type situation. So I wouldn't say it's something everybody could do, but I'd say most everybody could do. There'll be plenty of regroup. It'd be pretty casual pace. If you want to push yourself, you're free to do that on the uphills, not the downhills. Our goal isn't to split up a group and making everyone kill themselves. It's the nature and find cool things and have good adventures and have good times.

And what does that Queen Stage look like in terms of mileage and elevation gain?

Malibu there that we've got set up. It's Kinda the best of everything that Malibu has. Often I'll do creek state park through a blend of some really fun page sections and that's going to be. We will leave early, but it's probably going to be 70, eighty miles and probably close to 10,000 feet of climbing with a lunch stop thrown in the middle in Malibu at some. A, a beautiful little place kind of up in the woods there. So was going to be support and regroups and everything, so it's not going to be a death march by any means, but it'll be a long day with a lot of climate within general. You've got to be. There's some 3000 feet to the top from the ocean. So just to get over there, some pretty good climbs a built in.

Yeah. There's no way to avoid that coastal range if you're trying to get out of there.

We got free helicopter service. Cool. For all guests. I'll guess a, you're just responsible for calling nine one one on your own and then you guys are going to go up into, uh, into Topanga. It looks like one day. Yeah. Topanga is pretty close to publish work, so it's a pretty easy job up there. But then once you get into Panga, you've got a really spectacular view. The downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica and it's a really pretty place to ride because you can see so much to the urban area below you, but there's tons of fire roads and trails up there and then like, think we're going to have to throw in a fun little coffee. Banana bread stopped. It's a Topanga Creek outposts of a little hidden gem bike shops up in Topanga that, uh, has done a lot to foster the cycling community up there. Yeah, absolutely.

I actually credit Chris and his instagram feed for kind of getting me into the sport in many ways.

Great job of getting people on the bikes. He's so welcoming to everyone that wants to ride and they do a Saturday morning ride for all scale levels. It's, I mean, I credit him with show me, get me into racing and showing me all the trails up there. There's a ton of hidden stuff that they're uncovering every week, which was really cool that you can have a bike shop in Topanga and do a ride every week until, you know, six, seven years later be finding new trails. It's really neat. Yeah, I think for anybody down there in that region, region or anybody visiting, hitting that Saturday ride is a real special treat. I found they've been inviting to me in any bike I've shown up on. So I've showed up on a mountain bike, have borrowed a bike, a fat bike from them. I've written a cyclocross bike on, on that Saturday ride, and across the board of the 20 or 30 riders that are out there, you're going to see almost every genre of bike represented every Saturday. And somehow I don't manage this to all work together.

Anything else that our listeners to know about the gravel camp, how many people are you accepting and what are the dates for the upcoming camps?

The first one we're going to keep really, really small to a handful of people ideally to probably 12 or less to keep it, to keep it around 10 or so routers. We don't get to split up and we'll have a couple other ride leaders as well surrounding them to keep the group together. But the goal is to keep it small and intimate. And you know, we did a, it's hard to keep a bunch of people together. We did a group that, I guess it was about 50 and things get a little more, uh, more spread out in hard to wrangle. So we want people to have fun and enjoy themselves but not be afraid of getting lost or missing a regroup or anything like that are getting left out in the woods through the mountain lions.

And what's the website that people can check out to find out more?

Yeah. The first one is uh, gonna be in April from the sixteenth to the nineteenth. It's Kinda, we sandwiched in between those and wall fluoride and Sea Otter. So if you're doing any of those events, it's kind of a fun stop in between. My legs are going to be pretty cooked on that first day from Belgium waffle run, which is also a blast, but definitely not uv. So yeah, April the first one and the website is these net house.com. You can go check it out there and he's got the details and a bunch of photos too because I think those are way more, were more valuable than writing things about the route and then people can look and see, see where they're going to be riding a big selling point.

Yeah, absolutely. And I know you guys are active on instagram. Where can they follow you there? Uh, we've got the house accounts and then David got his accounts and I'm at our steers, the letter r and then s, t e r s I just did a sweep posts with some old action figure, a founder of a Kevin Costner if anyone wants to take a look there. Yeah, we've got a couple instagram accounts. You have to follow it. And one is very mysterious. That makes me, it makes no sense.

Right on guys, I've appreciate you joining me on the podcast this week and uh, you know, I wish you all the best on the camps and I hope they're filled to capacity and hopefully I can come down and pedal with you guys sometime.

Thanks Craig. See at the Mob Shop probably right on,

So that was a blast. Talking to Dave and Ryan. I think their gravel camps are going to be really a lot of fun. The Santa Monica Mountains have tons of trails, just looping between Malibu and Topanga and Calabasas. Definitely join them for the camps. Follow them on instagram to check out some of those trails are followed them on Strava. I highly recommend checking out that part of the country and that's for us here at the gravel ride. Definitely follow us on instagram at the gravel ride. You can shoot me a note at Craig at the gravel ride that bike, or follow me on Strava. I'd love to get your feedback, ratings, etc.

Kenny, welcome to the podcast this week. I appreciate you making some time to join us. Hey, thanks craig. I appreciate what you're doing with this. Right on. Can you tell us a little bit about your background as a cyclist and where you do most of your riding these days? I was lucky enough to grow up in the South Bay, Santa Clara I started riding a mountain bikes just after high school. The technology was getting better at that point in time, so quickly moved into downhill style of riding, but back then you know, you kind of did everything. You raced cross country on Saturday and then race downhill on Sunday on the same bike. Nice. So with that background, it's interesting that you discovered gravel riding. When did that come into play for you? I originally discovered a cyclocross bikes back in those early days. We were lucky enough in that area over in Santa Cruz. They had a great little cyclocross series. It started, funny enough, I started racing my mountain bike and those in, in this series before I really got underway with my mountain biking racing. Yeah, it's, it's funny. I did a little, a few of those series back in the day as well, and I remember Santa Cruz was the only place where I felt like I needed a cross bike because the, there was really a pure scene down. There were when you were riding the mountain bike, people were like, Hey, you should get on a cross bike. It's a little bit different of a sport. That's where I started to get excited about the idea of a cross bike, but being a poor college student and trying to work part time jobs to fuel my addiction. Did you eventually get on a cantilever cyclocross bike? I did, yeah, it was five or six years after I first raced in those surf city events that I was able to. I started working in the bike industry. I worked for a titech back in the day. Their sister company was Voodoo cycles, so I was able to get one of their frames and slowly cobble it together with old road and some mountain bike parts. Yeah, it's interesting. I think a lot of us in the gravel scene started out with cyclocross bikes many years ago and at least for me, I found with a mountain bike background I was overriding the cyclocross bike and with the cantilever brakes and tubes, tires. I would flat all the time and ultimately I ended up selling off all my cyclocross gear just because I was frustrated it wasn't capable of doing the type of writing I envisioned for it. Yeah, well I tried probably like yourself. I tried to get out and explore some of my favorite smoother mountain bike terrain and mix it up with some road. But like you, you know, I experienced not only the howling brakes in inclement weather. But you'd have to bring a couple tubes for even one ride. And the tires were limited in size too. I think there were a few companies making a little bit larger sized, uh, tires, but I remember that first cross bike that I had had pretty limited clearance. You know, maybe a 35 would fit in it. So drilling into the equipment a little bit more. I know from your experience working with Debbie to be, you know, a lot about tires. Can you talk a little bit more specifically about tires for gravel riding and racing and what you recommend and what you've experienced? I think that it all starts with the bead of the tire. Um, you hear you hear mountain bikers and now road cyclists talking about tubeless compatibility and I think starting with, with the bead of the tire and how it interfaces with you, you can either be very safe or, or risk a, what we call burping or, or dislodging the tire and losing, losing air pressure starting there and getting that dialed was paramount for Wilderness Trail Bikes. You know, we learned a lot from, from the technology Is WTB offering both 650b and 700 cc? We are, we have a multitude of sizes. 650, we started off with the plus size tires, which, which are, you know, upwards of 47 millimeter bead to bead, which is pretty sizable tire, I think that works out to be about a one point eight or one point nine equivalent in, uh, in mountain bike sizing. But now we're doing a [inaudible], so a little bit smaller diameter options for the [inaudible] rider. And then we have everything from a 30 to see 700 see tire up to a 45. So, so a huge, huge amount of range and room for different, different riding conditions, you know, even even cross racing, the tubeless compatibility allows, you know, for a long time you heard tubulars were the go to for racers and, and, and I think they will always be there for, for the hardcore a cross racer, but a tubless e compatibility. Has allowed you to take some of that technology and get some of that suppleness uh, without the painstaking process of gluing on to being a, to get that, that, you know, nice cush ride or a ultimate traction for coroners to bliss. Compatibility will give you most of that at a fraction of the cost and uh, and also be equally or more say, send your tubular tire options. How has WTB addressed mixed terrain riding in its tread patterns? We've tried to come up with the same strategy that we used for mountain biking in that you have, you have tires that roll fast, you know, they typically have a low profile center center Knob, um, but, but you usually will always want a very positive engagement with, with the ground on your, on your intermediate and edge knobs. So we've, we've taken that and applied it to the, to the gravel side of things too, you know, and when, when mud is introduced or wet, wet climate, you want a little bit more with some open spaces in between. We've come up with an option that's still rolls fast on the pavement. But uh, the intermediate niche knobs have a little bit more space between them so the mud can clear and you get positive engagement with the ground. Yeah. There's certainly a lot to think about with tire selection. When you think about the types of events you may have done over the last 12 months, at least for me, I think I could have selected a different tire for each one based on the terrain. I think that's the beauty of, of gravel riding. I mean typically, um, if you've road raced or you know, have done a fondo or something or, or if you go to the other side talk about mountain biking, you very rarely look back at your equipment and what you could have done better there. It's usually, you know, the training aspect and with gravel you almost always come up with a few things that you could've done different with your equipment. Whether it's, you know, bigger, bigger, tougher tires for the rough or sections of the course or lower profile, sleeker, lighter tires for the, for the road segments or, or the smoother fire road, dirt sections. You're always kind of analyzing and going back and yeah, I always tend towards the fat or rubber just because I'm out there for an adventure. But I often look longingly at some guy with 700 c narrow tires cranking up a hill on is super lightweight bike, but at the same token, I know payback's going to be a bitch and I'm going to be ripping by him with my 650 b's on all the descents. It is one of those fascinating parts of our gravel riding and it makes it a lot of fun. And I think you sort of look over with a wink knowing that at a certain point your equipment's going to be superior to someone else's. And vice versa. I think when you're in doubt, you know, going, going a little tougher or, or larger diameter tire is, is always the best bet. But, um, it is funny how you look over at a, at a lighter weight set up and whether it be mile 70 year or up a grueling climb, you know, kind of wish that you had that. Just for that one section. Yeah. I think until the industry got the vision for more adventurous riding, the necessity to put wider tires on those bikes really wasn't there over the last five years, five, six years. I think we've seen an explosion in frame builders in larger companies building those bikes that can accommodate this type of riding. Was there a particular bike in your quiver that really kind of opened your eyes to what that ideal adventure bike would look like? Absolutely. So fast forward, probably five or six years ago, I purchased, an IBIS HAKLUGI their first model with disc brakes and quickly got tubeless ready, tubeless compatible tires in around the 40 size tipping point for me. I was able to go farther, longer with no mechanicals and superior braking. Allowed me to to go back and retrace my roots and ride some of the stuff that, that I enjoyed on a mountain bike while while doing it on the cross or gravel bike. Yeah, it's interesting. I think the type of equipment we're riding these days, it's subtly different but in really powerful performance ways and it's almost confusing to my friends who don't ride gravel on these types of bikes to understand how much terrain is opened up, whether it's just being able to ride slightly more technical terrain because of the wire, wider tires or creating these mixed terrain loops. So I'm curious, have you been an advocate in your friend group around gravel cycling and what's been the response as you started to get more excited about it? Absolutely, yeah. They uh, you know, your, your hardcore mountain bike or road friends typically will make, make fun of you, but you know, usually it's, it's getting them out on a bike that, that is equipped with the technology. We're talking about the tubeless ready tires, lower pressures on those tires. And then also a disc brakes. I think once they get on a, on a machine like that, they realized the potential that that's really. I think that's the gateway. Yeah, exactly. I think, I think until they've given it a try, as you said, an opened up sort of a big loop that wasn't possible on a pure mountain bike. That and trying out some of these new events that are cropping up I think has been huge because the community element of the gravel riding and racing community I think is just unmatched in other disciplines right now. Can you talk a little bit about how the community has come into play for you in gravel riding? I guess it was close to a decade ago, I started going out and riding the grasshopper series, which is probably one of the first adventure bike events that I was ever privy to. You know, a lot of the events you can do on a road bike or mountain bike, but usually the the gravel or cross bike would be the perfect go between where you can literally do any of their events on a, on a gravel bike and not be hindered with either the weight of a traditional mountain bike or a limited tire size and breaking of have a road bike. That's grasshopper events I think are this amazing combination of you've got a bunch of ex pro's racing at the front, but the whole day is community oriented. Afterwards, everybody's hanging out and enjoying a beer or two. A. It just makes a great day out. Yeah. You realize how cool the cycling community can be. You get people from, you know, such a, such a diverse background, not only at the pro level with, with different disciplines, but just, you know, all walks of life. Bike is, is the great medium to bring all those people together. It really, uh, you know, the, the events themselves are amazing and you to see more terrain in a day than you typically would out on a ride. Spending a little time after the event and and talking to people that really brings, I guess the element of friendship, camaraderie and the larger northern California community together. Yeah. It reminds me of the early days of mountain bike racing where people would camp at the event and everybody would hang out together. And it just was about racing and riding new terrain. I remember growing up in the mid Atlantic, I would specifically sign up to race because I wanted to see what it was like racing in Virginia Virginia and having someone lay out a course for me and knowing there was going to be a bunch of like minded cyclists around. Just made it an obvious way to spend the weekend. Good way to keep yourself healthy and, and expand your network of trails and uh, and you know, possibly meet some new friends along the way that, uh, you know, have the same, same goals and you know, possibly ride some new terrain with them along the way. Yeah. So you recently decided to put on a event of your own. What inspired this? Well, it's been something I've wanted to do for quite awhile. I now live full time in Auburn, California. I have discovered the, uh, the gravel riding is really second to none here and the in the area is, you know, rich with history not too far away from where gold was discovered in the, in the area and, or, you know, really they were developed, um, from gold miners going, going into these canyons and I'm using some of this, uh, some of these roads, fire roads and trail to show people what we have in this region. Awesome. Were you designing it with a specific type of bike in mind? Did you want it to be on the more tactical side of gravel riding more fire roads? What's, what's the mix you're shooting for? I wanted to try to, to create a mix, you know, a little bit of everything. I initially started writing this stuff when I was training for the lost and found a gravel event up in the Sierra Nevada and then just started expanding my road rides into these areas and then utilizing some of the trails that I have written for many years on my mountain bike, kind of getting a, you know, the perfect balance of painful for your upper body, you know, single track riding and then you know, being able to jump out on the road and stretch out and maybe grab, grab a quick bite to eat and then, and then back into the dirt for a, you know, a nice long bus team climb to, to experience some of the, some of the views that we have around here. Yeah. For those of you who haven't been to auburn, it's a spectacular part of northern California and I, I've sampled a little bit of the trail system that I'm really looking forward to getting up there and having you map out an epic day on the bike for us. Yeah, I think I have a good one in store for us. The event's going to be April 28th. It's the Auburn Dirt Fondo and I think I've pretty much nailed the route. I've kind of gone back and forth with a eliminating some of the busier roads and uh, and trying to make, you know, the return back to Auburn as memorable as possible, you know, and, and being void of traffic. I think only helps that. Any other tips and tricks you have for our listeners who are going to get prepared for the event? Yeah, I would say if you're usually tires are a part of your bikes. That's in question and I would say typically the bigger the better, but you can, you can run a little bit faster rolling a tire for this event depending on what the weather throws at us, you know, usually April is a beautiful here. Well, like any adventure, it wouldn't be as much fun if we knew everything that was going to be in front of us. Absolutely. A little bit of a little bit of tacky dirt and some, uh, would, would only benefit the event. I'll get the registration information into the show notes when we publish and make sure everybody knows how to get in touch with you and register for the event. Excellent. I appreciate that. So you mentioned a few other gravel events that you've done. Are there a few that stand out that you'd like to recommend to our listeners? Well, definitely the Lost and Found. They also put on Grinduro, which is a fun new event. Kind of a little different format. I really liked the lost and found because it's a hundred miles of terrain that you typically wouldn't get too. That sounds great. It's a, is it a particularly fast course, You know, every year has been a little bit different, but they're, they're kind of bringing it back to, uh, to bring the speed of the event of last year was, you know, we here in California, northern California, we had a pretty serious winter, so, so the roads took a beating. It was quite a bit tougher on, on a drop bar bike and almost made it, you know, kind of a hard tail, 29 or a fair for the fast guys. I think this year will be quite a bit faster if I remember correctly, the first year I did it for the first four hours of the race. This is a hundred mile race. For the first four hours we averaged over 20 miles an hour. I'm guessing that they'll probably get back to that. That's exciting. Yeah. I think it's interesting as course, designers think about how they want to push the limits of the equipment and endurance. There's such a balance between the type of riding, the speed of writing, the amount of vertical feet you're going to be climbing. That really makes course design and art A little bit of a rough terrain is always exciting to challenge yourself on, on a drop our bike. But if you get miles on end of rough terrain it could be, you know, fairly abusive on your upper body. So it's kind of nice to have, you know, maybe a little spattering of that. But when the speeds high and you're utilizing, you know, broken pavement, fire roads with a little single track mixed in, I think that's, that's a pretty good mix. The sport has a lot of different opportunities in it for athletes and I think it's diverging a little bit. You've got these big ultra endurance events that are more akin to the hundred Mile Mountain bike races that were popular like Leadville, 100 or 24 hour racing. And on the other side of the spectrum you've got these shorter, punchier faster races that are emerging. Do you have any thoughts on which direction you see the sport going or do you think it has room for all these types of events? You think that there's, there's enough room for all these types of events? You know, I mentioned grinder, Oh, and this is an event that's about 60 miles in length, but you're only, you have time segments within, uh, within the event. So you ended up doing about 30 or 40 minutes of racing through something like four or five different stages, so, so it allows you to go full gas if you want to through the time sections, but hang back with your friends or your wife or girlfriend or, or vice versa, them wait for you and you know, talk about the, the stages coming up, the stages prior. It kind of really, you know, builds that camaraderie. I really did enjoy the format for exactly the reasons you described. I'm curious if more companies that event producers are going to start going that route to really enforce the idea that we're a community and riding with your friends can mean riding with slower friends as well as faster friends. Yeah, I think, uh, these types of events as well as, you know, the, the event that I'm putting on, I'm just doing a, an epic ride that, you know, if you, if you want to erase it, you can or if you want to, you know, put in, put in some hard efforts on, on climbs or whatever, but then wait for your friend. Yeah. And at the end of the day at the Auburn Dirt Fonda, are we going to have a barbecue or some other type of festival atmosphere? Absolutely. We're, we're, we're going to be starting and finishing from Moonraker brewing company. We're lucky enough here to start and finish from there and pretty much jump right on. I'm right on trail. Um, and then we take off on our day and get up into the Sierra foothills and Sierra mountains. Pretty fortunate to, uh, to be able to start and finish there. We'll have a food truck and probably some live music as well. Well that sounds awesome. I appreciate all the time today talking to us, the Auburn Dirt Fondo on April 28th. Should be on everybody's bucket list for this year. Thanks again Kenny. Oh, no problem. Thanks for having me on your podcast and I appreciate your time.

Kenny, welcome to the podcast this week. I appreciate you making some time to join us. Hey, thanks craig. I appreciate what you're doing with this. Right on. Can you tell us a little bit about your background as a cyclist and where you do most of your riding these days? I was lucky enough to grow up in the South Bay, Santa Clara I started riding a mountain bikes just after high school. The technology was getting better at that point in time, so quickly moved into downhill style of riding, but back then you know, you kind of did everything. You raced cross country on Saturday and then race downhill on Sunday on the same bike. Nice. So with that background, it's interesting that you discovered gravel riding. When did that come into play for you? I originally discovered a cyclocross bikes back in those early days. We were lucky enough in that area over in Santa Cruz. They had a great little cyclocross series. It started, funny enough, I started racing my mountain bike and those in, in this series before I really got underway with my mountain biking racing. Yeah, it's, it's funny. I did a little, a few of those series back in the day as well, and I remember Santa Cruz was the only place where I felt like I needed a cross bike because the, there was really a pure scene down. There were when you were riding the mountain bike, people were like, Hey, you should get on a cross bike. It's a little bit different of a sport. That's where I started to get excited about the idea of a cross bike, but being a poor college student and trying to work part time jobs to fuel my addiction. Did you eventually get on a cantilever cyclocross bike? I did, yeah, it was five or six years after I first raced in those surf city events that I was able to. I started working in the bike industry. I worked for a titech back in the day. Their sister company was Voodoo cycles, so I was able to get one of their frames and slowly cobble it together with old road and some mountain bike parts. Yeah, it's interesting. I think a lot of us in the gravel scene started out with cyclocross bikes many years ago and at least for me, I found with a mountain bike background I was overriding the cyclocross bike and with the cantilever brakes and tubes, tires. I would flat all the time and ultimately I ended up selling off all my cyclocross gear just because I was frustrated it wasn't capable of doing the type of writing I envisioned for it. Yeah, well I tried probably like yourself. I tried to get out and explore some of my favorite smoother mountain bike terrain and mix it up with some road. But like you, you know, I experienced not only the howling brakes in inclement weather. But you'd have to bring a couple tubes for even one ride. And the tires were limited in size too. I think there were a few companies making a little bit larger sized, uh, tires, but I remember that first cross bike that I had had pretty limited clearance. You know, maybe a 35 would fit in it. So drilling into the equipment a little bit more. I know from your experience working with Debbie to be, you know, a lot about tires. Can you talk a little bit more specifically about tires for gravel riding and racing and what you recommend and what you've experienced? I think that it all starts with the bead of the tire. Um, you hear you hear mountain bikers and now road cyclists talking about tubeless compatibility and I think starting with, with the bead of the tire and how it interfaces with you, you can either be very safe or, or risk a, what we call burping or, or dislodging the tire and losing, losing air pressure starting there and getting that dialed was paramount for Wilderness Trail Bikes. You know, we learned a lot from, from the technology Is WTB offering both 650b and 700 cc? We are, we have a multitude of sizes. 650, we started off with the plus size tires, which, which are, you know, upwards of 47 millimeter bead to bead, which is pretty sizable tire, I think that works out to be about a one point eight or one point nine equivalent in, uh, in mountain bike sizing. But now we're doing a [inaudible], so a little bit smaller diameter options for the [inaudible] rider. And then we have everything from a 30 to see 700 see tire up to a 45. So, so a huge, huge amount of range and room for different, different riding conditions, you know, even even cross racing, the tubeless compatibility allows, you know, for a long time you heard tubulars were the go to for racers and, and, and I think they will always be there for, for the hardcore a cross racer, but a tubless e compatibility. Has allowed you to take some of that technology and get some of that suppleness uh, without the painstaking process of gluing on to being a, to get that, that, you know, nice cush ride or a ultimate traction for coroners to bliss. Compatibility will give you most of that at a fraction of the cost and uh, and also be equally or more say, send your tubular tire options. How has WTB addressed mixed terrain riding in its tread patterns? We've tried to come up with the same strategy that we used for mountain biking in that you have, you have tires that roll fast, you know, they typically have a low profile center center Knob, um, but, but you usually will always want a very positive engagement with, with the ground on your, on your intermediate and edge knobs. So we've, we've taken that and applied it to the, to the gravel side of things too, you know, and when, when mud is introduced or wet, wet climate, you want a little bit more with some open spaces in between. We've come up with an option that's still rolls fast on the pavement. But uh, the intermediate niche knobs have a little bit more space between them so the mud can clear and you get positive engagement with the ground. Yeah. There's certainly a lot to think about with tire selection. When you think about the types of events you may have done over the last 12 months, at least for me, I think I could have selected a different tire for each one based on the terrain. I think that's the beauty of, of gravel riding. I mean typically, um, if you've road raced or you know, have done a fondo or something or, or if you go to the other side talk about mountain biking, you very rarely look back at your equipment and what you could have done better there. It's usually, you know, the training aspect and with gravel you almost always come up with a few things that you could've done different with your equipment. Whether it's, you know, bigger, bigger, tougher tires for the rough or sections of the course or lower profile, sleeker, lighter tires for the, for the road segments or, or the smoother fire road, dirt sections. You're always kind of analyzing and going back and yeah, I always tend towards the fat or rubber just because I'm out there for an adventure. But I often look longingly at some guy with 700 c narrow tires cranking up a hill on is super lightweight bike, but at the same token, I know payback's going to be a bitch and I'm going to be ripping by him with my 650 b's on all the descents. It is one of those fascinating parts of our gravel riding and it makes it a lot of fun. And I think you sort of look over with a wink knowing that at a certain point your equipment's going to be superior to someone else's. And vice versa. I think when you're in doubt, you know, going, going a little tougher or, or larger diameter tire is, is always the best bet. But, um, it is funny how you look over at a, at a lighter weight set up and whether it be mile 70 year or up a grueling climb, you know, kind of wish that you had that. Just for that one section. Yeah. I think until the industry got the vision for more adventurous riding, the necessity to put wider tires on those bikes really wasn't there over the last five years, five, six years. I think we've seen an explosion in frame builders in larger companies building those bikes that can accommodate this type of riding. Was there a particular bike in your quiver that really kind of opened your eyes to what that ideal adventure bike would look like? Absolutely. So fast forward, probably five or six years ago, I purchased, an IBIS HAKLUGI their first model with disc brakes and quickly got tubeless ready, tubeless compatible tires in around the 40 size tipping point for me. I was able to go farther, longer with no mechanicals and superior braking. Allowed me to to go back and retrace my roots and ride some of the stuff that, that I enjoyed on a mountain bike while while doing it on the cross or gravel bike. Yeah, it's interesting. I think the type of equipment we're riding these days, it's subtly different but in really powerful performance ways and it's almost confusing to my friends who don't ride gravel on these types of bikes to understand how much terrain is opened up, whether it's just being able to ride slightly more technical terrain because of the wire, wider tires or creating these mixed terrain loops. So I'm curious, have you been an advocate in your friend group around gravel cycling and what's been the response as you started to get more excited about it? Absolutely, yeah. They uh, you know, your, your hardcore mountain bike or road friends typically will make, make fun of you, but you know, usually it's, it's getting them out on a bike that, that is equipped with the technology. We're talking about the tubeless ready tires, lower pressures on those tires. And then also a disc brakes. I think once they get on a, on a machine like that, they realized the potential that that's really. I think that's the gateway. Yeah, exactly. I think, I think until they've given it a try, as you said, an opened up sort of a big loop that wasn't possible on a pure mountain bike. That and trying out some of these new events that are cropping up I think has been huge because the community element of the gravel riding and racing community I think is just unmatched in other disciplines right now. Can you talk a little bit about how the community has come into play for you in gravel riding? I guess it was close to a decade ago, I started going out and riding the grasshopper series, which is probably one of the first adventure bike events that I was ever privy to. You know, a lot of the events you can do on a road bike or mountain bike, but usually the the gravel or cross bike would be the perfect go between where you can literally do any of their events on a, on a gravel bike and not be hindered with either the weight of a traditional mountain bike or a limited tire size and breaking of have a road bike. That's grasshopper events I think are this amazing combination of you've got a bunch of ex pro's racing at the front, but the whole day is community oriented. Afterwards, everybody's hanging out and enjoying a beer or two. A. It just makes a great day out. Yeah. You realize how cool the cycling community can be. You get people from, you know, such a, such a diverse background, not only at the pro level with, with different disciplines, but just, you know, all walks of life. Bike is, is the great medium to bring all those people together. It really, uh, you know, the, the events themselves are amazing and you to see more terrain in a day than you typically would out on a ride. Spending a little time after the event and and talking to people that really brings, I guess the element of friendship, camaraderie and the larger northern California community together. Yeah. It reminds me of the early days of mountain bike racing where people would camp at the event and everybody would hang out together. And it just was about racing and riding new terrain. I remember growing up in the mid Atlantic, I would specifically sign up to race because I wanted to see what it was like racing in Virginia Virginia and having someone lay out a course for me and knowing there was going to be a bunch of like minded cyclists around. Just made it an obvious way to spend the weekend. Good way to keep yourself healthy and, and expand your network of trails and uh, and you know, possibly meet some new friends along the way that, uh, you know, have the same, same goals and you know, possibly ride some new terrain with them along the way. Yeah. So you recently decided to put on a event of your own. What inspired this? Well, it's been something I've wanted to do for quite awhile. I now live full time in Auburn, California. I have discovered the, uh, the gravel riding is really second to none here and the in the area is, you know, rich with history not too far away from where gold was discovered in the, in the area and, or, you know, really they were developed, um, from gold miners going, going into these canyons and I'm using some of this, uh, some of these roads, fire roads and trail to show people what we have in this region. Awesome. Were you designing it with a specific type of bike in mind? Did you want it to be on the more tactical side of gravel riding more fire roads? What's, what's the mix you're shooting for? I wanted to try to, to create a mix, you know, a little bit of everything. I initially started writing this stuff when I was training for the lost and found a gravel event up in the Sierra Nevada and then just started expanding my road rides into these areas and then utilizing some of the trails that I have written for many years on my mountain bike, kind of getting a, you know, the perfect balance of painful for your upper body, you know, single track riding and then you know, being able to jump out on the road and stretch out and maybe grab, grab a quick bite to eat and then, and then back into the dirt for a, you know, a nice long bus team climb to, to experience some of the, some of the views that we have around here. Yeah. For those of you who haven't been to auburn, it's a spectacular part of northern California and I, I've sampled a little bit of the trail system that I'm really looking forward to getting up there and having you map out an epic day on the bike for us. Yeah, I think I have a good one in store for us. The event's going to be April 28th. It's the Auburn Dirt Fondo and I think I've pretty much nailed the route. I've kind of gone back and forth with a eliminating some of the busier roads and uh, and trying to make, you know, the return back to Auburn as memorable as possible, you know, and, and being void of traffic. I think only helps that. Any other tips and tricks you have for our listeners who are going to get prepared for the event? Yeah, I would say if you're usually tires are a part of your bikes. That's in question and I would say typically the bigger the better, but you can, you can run a little bit faster rolling a tire for this event depending on what the weather throws at us, you know, usually April is a beautiful here. Well, like any adventure, it wouldn't be as much fun if we knew everything that was going to be in front of us. Absolutely. A little bit of a little bit of tacky dirt and some, uh, would, would only benefit the event. I'll get the registration information into the show notes when we publish and make sure everybody knows how to get in touch with you and register for the event. Excellent. I appreciate that. So you mentioned a few other gravel events that you've done. Are there a few that stand out that you'd like to recommend to our listeners? Well, definitely the Lost and Found. They also put on Grinduro, which is a fun new event. Kind of a little different format. I really liked the lost and found because it's a hundred miles of terrain that you typically wouldn't get too. That sounds great. It's a, is it a particularly fast course, You know, every year has been a little bit different, but they're, they're kind of bringing it back to, uh, to bring the speed of the event of last year was, you know, we here in California, northern California, we had a pretty serious winter, so, so the roads took a beating. It was quite a bit tougher on, on a drop bar bike and almost made it, you know, kind of a hard tail, 29 or a fair for the fast guys. I think this year will be quite a bit faster if I remember correctly, the first year I did it for the first four hours of the race. This is a hundred mile race. For the first four hours we averaged over 20 miles an hour. I'm guessing that they'll probably get back to that. That's exciting. Yeah. I think it's interesting as course, designers think about how they want to push the limits of the equipment and endurance. There's such a balance between the type of riding, the speed of writing, the amount of vertical feet you're going to be climbing. That really makes course design and art A little bit of a rough terrain is always exciting to challenge yourself on, on a drop our bike. But if you get miles on end of rough terrain it could be, you know, fairly abusive on your upper body. So it's kind of nice to have, you know, maybe a little spattering of that. But when the speeds high and you're utilizing, you know, broken pavement, fire roads with a little single track mixed in, I think that's, that's a pretty good mix. The sport has a lot of different opportunities in it for athletes and I think it's diverging a little bit. You've got these big ultra endurance events that are more akin to the hundred Mile Mountain bike races that were popular like Leadville, 100 or 24 hour racing. And on the other side of the spectrum you've got these shorter, punchier faster races that are emerging. Do you have any thoughts on which direction you see the sport going or do you think it has room for all these types of events? You think that there's, there's enough room for all these types of events? You know, I mentioned grinder, Oh, and this is an event that's about 60 miles in length, but you're only, you have time segments within, uh, within the event. So you ended up doing about 30 or 40 minutes of racing through something like four or five different stages, so, so it allows you to go full gas if you want to through the time sections, but hang back with your friends or your wife or girlfriend or, or vice versa, them wait for you and you know, talk about the, the stages coming up, the stages prior. It kind of really, you know, builds that camaraderie. I really did enjoy the format for exactly the reasons you described. I'm curious if more companies that event producers are going to start going that route to really enforce the idea that we're a community and riding with your friends can mean riding with slower friends as well as faster friends. Yeah, I think, uh, these types of events as well as, you know, the, the event that I'm putting on, I'm just doing a, an epic ride that, you know, if you, if you want to erase it, you can or if you want to, you know, put in, put in some hard efforts on, on climbs or whatever, but then wait for your friend. Yeah. And at the end of the day at the Auburn Dirt Fonda, are we going to have a barbecue or some other type of festival atmosphere? Absolutely. We're, we're, we're going to be starting and finishing from Moonraker brewing company. We're lucky enough here to start and finish from there and pretty much jump right on. I'm right on trail. Um, and then we take off on our day and get up into the Sierra foothills and Sierra mountains. Pretty fortunate to, uh, to be able to start and finish there. We'll have a food truck and probably some live music as well. Well that sounds awesome. I appreciate all the time today talking to us, the Auburn Dirt Fondo on April 28th. Should be on everybody's bucket list for this year. Thanks again Kenny. Oh, no problem. Thanks for having me on your podcast and I appreciate your time.

]]>23:41clean Kenny, welcome to the podcast this week. I appreciate you making some time to join us....]]>A discussion with Kenny Burt of Wilderness Trails Bike and the Auburn Dirt Fondo. We discuss gravel tires, the gravel riding community and the inaugural Auburn Dirt Fondo Event. 4fullCraig DaltonScott Witthoff: Dirty Kanza Age Group Winner, The Coast Ride, Gravel GrindingScott Witthoff: Dirty Kanza Age Group Winner, The Coast Ride, Gravel GrindingFri, 16 Feb 2018 04:07:14 +0000Episode Links:

Scott Witthoff : 00:03 What's hard about the first 50 miles of dirty Kansas is you're in a group of 50 guys and women. You're surrounded by folks all around you and you. It's really difficult to drink. Craig Dalton: 00:22 That was this week's guest Scott Whitthoff two time, age group winner at Dirty Kanza, talking about the first 15 miles of DK200. This week we talk about West Coast versus Midwest gravel and as always we'll talk about a few more events that you should have on your riding bucket list. Announcer : 00:38 Welcome to the gravel ride. Your go to podcast about the people, places and products that defined gravel cycling. Here's your host, Craig Dalton. Craig Dalton: 00:51 Welcome to the pod. Scott, I really appreciate you making the time to come talk to us today. Yeah, it's good to be here. So I know you from just General San Francisco cycling and and mainly like that epic ride you do on Saturdays, but can you tell me a little bit about your background as a cyclist? Scott Witthoff : 01:07 So I'm born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska. In High School I had some classmates that I really looked up to. They race every Saturday and they come to class on Monday morning showing off their eighty / hundred dollar cash winnings. I was like, what is that? You know, what do you get that for? And they're a big bike racers. So I got started when I was probably 16 years old. Craig Dalton: 01:33 That's a long journey in the sport. Scott Witthoff : 01:35 Yeah. And then I slowly kind of discovered that I wasn't a great cyclist. I was just average and um, I wasn't meant to be a bike racer and uh, I was on a cross country and track team, so picked up swimming and I turned into a little triathlete. Hate to say it, but that's sort of already my early days of cycling. I was kind of a triathlete. Craig Dalton: 02:01 We won't shame you for that. So then, you know, onto the subject of gravel writing. It sounds like from talking to you earlier that you discovered riding on dirt quite early, just by nature, that terrain that was around your home. Scott Witthoff : 02:16 I felt like I lived out in the country in Lincoln, lived on a small lake in the winter months. The group of guys I would ride with, we would spend a lot of time riding gravel roads. We would just head out and ride 20 miles, maybe 30 miles straight into a headwind and then turn around and ride back. That's kind of what you do in the Midwest. You wherever the winds out of you ride in straight into that headwind. And then have a tailwind coming back. Craig Dalton: 02:44 And were you just writing your regular road bike out on those rides Scott Witthoff : 02:46 in the winter wheat. Then we'd try to ride a road bikes as much as possible. And then we slowly started riding her mountain bikes. That was more the, that fast forwarding a little bit. That was around 1987. I got my first mountain bike and I love riding on my mountain bike. Um, so that was, but up until 87I only road my road bike on the gravel also. Lincoln has really hard pack gravel so it's pretty fast and it's not too loose. And different states like Kansas, you need to be on like more of a mountain bike or a gravel bike. Craig Dalton: 03:29 Gotcha. But you've been living out in the bay area for a while and obviously like the gravel racing and riding scene has really become popular over the last, let's call it five or six years. Were there elements of the equipment that you saw evolve that really made it come back into your life in earnest? Scott Witthoff : 03:48 I feel like last weekend was the Grasshopper, a Old Caz, which you were there and we had a, like it was an absolute blast. Racing that years ago on with cantilever brakes. Um, if it's muddy or I don't know, it just feels like disc brakes have really changed the ability to run a fatter tire nowadays on these gravel bikes is wonderful. Being able to put a 40 millimeter tire on your bike is pretty wonderful. Craig Dalton: 04:17 I think it's huge. I'm excited to talk to you because you're one of the few guys I know who has experience midwest gravel riding and gravel riding here in Marin County and northern California. So I'm, I'm curious to explore that a little bit and you know, maybe one way to do that is to talk about your experience at Dirty Kanza because here I guess it's three time veteran of that event in two time age group, winner. So I think your insights are going to be really fascinating on that. Scott Witthoff : 04:45 First off, that's an amazing race. It's, it's truly a community when you go back there and I look forward to going back to see friends and and see a lot of bay area people that travel all the way to Kansas. So he seemed so out of place. When you step off a plane and going to Emporia Kansas, you're like holy cow, look at all these people from all over all over the US Craig Dalton: 05:08 What inspired you to do it for the first time three years ago? Scott Witthoff : 05:11 There were some folks, some guys that I used to ride within Lincoln, Nebraska that had been doing it. One Guy, he, he's done 10 of them. I've always wanted to go do it, but I've been so intimidated by that distance. It's hard to wrap your head around 200 miles. Once you do it, it's. It turns out it's not as hard to wrap your head around once you complete your first one Craig Dalton: 05:38 Given the type of terrain we have out here in Marin county, which is a lot of ups and downs in a sustained fashion, so you know you're climbing 800 feet or a thousand feet to translate that to more that the rolling hills in the Midwest. It is a bit of a disconnect on how you train for it. Can you talk a little bit how you train for it and how you got head around it and how that actually translated when you were on the dirt? Scott Witthoff : 06:04 I did a lot of Saturday and Sunday, big, big blocks of training and I don't like to call it training. It just. I grab a group of friends and we go out and we do big Saturday ride on pavement and then maybe Sunday followed up with another big day, maybe two really big six hour days on the bike. You need to do some training off road just to get your upper body used to all the, the abuse that it will take because it's pounding on the handlebars. Craig Dalton: 06:35 Over 200 Mile Day, it's gotta be a lot of abuse. Is a different that it's sort of smaller. Rolling Hills and then the sustained descending that we do out here. Scott Witthoff : 06:44 I feel like what's hard about the first 50 miles of dairy, Kansas is you're in a group of 50 guys and women. You're surrounded by folks all around you and you. It's really difficult to drink, to hydrate. So I think a camelback is a must. Craig Dalton: 07:04 And did you figure that out on the first go round or did it take to the second? I'm a huge sweater. I cramp pretty easily if I don't have a camel back, um, I'll be in big trouble. But the first 15 miles you're not really taking your hands off the bars a whole lot. And then once it kind of spreads out, then you can kind of, once you're kind of in your little group than you're able to eat and drink and gather yourself a little bit. Craig Dalton: 07:30 And I was surprised to learn that there was a lot of flats at Dirty Kanza. What element of the terrain creates that? The Flint hills of Kansas are those razor sharp rocks are. Scott Witthoff : 07:42 I mean you see so many flat tires. Those first 50 miles, you're also in a big group so you can't eat or you might not be taking the best line. You might have to follow somebody. And sometimes I find myself trying to drift back a little bit to give myself some space because I've learned the hardware, you know, just flooding a lot. It seems like I get a lot of flats. I've kind of had to learn the hard way. I've got to drift back a little bit and have a good side of line, you know, I can see what I'm about to run into. Craig Dalton: 08:17 What kind of equipment were you riding? Scott Witthoff : 08:19 I'm a big fan of the specialized trigger. Tubeless. It's a 38 millimeter tire. Which has good sidewall protection and does it have a knob on it? Yeah. Does it has a great file tread like perfect for cancer. I feel like everybody's making a great tread is just how good is the sidewall protection. A lot of tires out there. Just don't have a lot of good sidewall casing. Right. Craig Dalton: 08:48 It sounds like that's a good investment if you're going to go tackle Dirty Kanza. Scott Witthoff : 08:51 It's a heavy tire. It's really heavy. Um, I think it's worth having a little bit higher volume tire. Craig Dalton: 09:00 Yeah. That offers a little bit more sidewall protection. So it sounds like a couple of takeaways are. Consider camelback for hydration just so you can stay hydrated during the first 50 miles and obviously the later in the day as it adds up. Great tires with good sidewalls. Last thing you want to do is make a long day even longer with a couple of flats and then just getting out there and then putting the mileage on however you can. And in your local, the local terrain. Scott Witthoff : 09:26 I feel like I carry. I have three bladders waiting for me. Each rest stop. There's only three rest stops over the 200 miles I roll in the feed zone and I'll quickly swap out one bladder and put it in a fresh one. Craig Dalton: 09:44 Was that a neutral area that you'd like? They just transported your gear bag and you found your number and you grabbed it or did you actually have friends out there helping you? Scott Witthoff : 09:52 Everyone needs to have their own support crew or you can do a for hire crew, which I've done the last three years. Um, it's a local, it's like $75. They and it's wonderful. I've highly recommended and they're the first. You go through the timing mat and they're the first group waiting for you, like big purple shammy butter tent. So you can find your crew quickly and then they have your back laying out for you. That's amazing. They call it in and they were like, can come see, you know, Scott would off and they've got your bag waiting for you. Craig Dalton: 10:26 I guess that comes with being a 12 year old event versus you know, many of the events were riding these days are, are one or two years old. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of sort of the iron man experience where it's just a little bit more dialed. You have to get you through the end of what is inevitably going to be an epic day. I mean we're talking about what a 13 hour day, which is far beyond what most of us usually ride. Scott Witthoff : 10:51 I would gladly open a couple more rest stops along the way. I find myself stuck in between usually the second and third totally dehydrated. No water. One year I had to pull off a group that I was in right up to a farmhouse and asked for some water how to sell. Wow. That got me to the third checkpoint. Craig Dalton: 11:14 I think what's interesting about all these gravel events is there, you know, they're, they're going in multiple different directions. Like something like Dirty Kanza, which has obviously been around for a long time, is an ultra endurance race, which is different than, you know, the four hour races of the grasshopper series or gravel mob or things like that. Um, and that's what I find really interesting about the sport in general is that things things are going in multiple different directions. And you know, I, for one, as I mentioned earlier, like I love the idea that the festival atmosphere, yeah, of these events that I hope regardless of how many people come on the front, that that spirit of adventure and that sort of community persists throughout these events. Scott Witthoff : 11:56 The one, one thing I really love about Dirty Kanza, the entire town of Emporia, they'd come out for it and they have, they have all these tents and pop up food vendors and it's neat to see all the, the winners, they come back out and they cheer people on until midnight. I mean, it's a party music going and I just think that's wonderful that it's neat to see the winners that come back down and cheer every last finisher. Craig Dalton: 12:25 Those guys have put together such an incredible event and I think, you know, for those of us who may not have spent a lot of time in Kansas to be able to go and participate in an event that has such a legacy in the sport and see how it's done. Right, and see how the community comes behind it. I think it's like a great model for, you know, some of the newer vans to aspire to. Scott Witthoff : 12:48 In Europe is now taking note of what dirty Kansas has done and they're putting on races over in Europe now. Based on that, the formula that works for dirty cancer, like what is it that makes a great race. I think we're seeing that everywhere people are putting on amazing races. Craig Dalton: 13:07 Are there some other events that you've done in the past or hope to do in the future that you're excited about? Scott Witthoff : 13:13 You know, I missed, I was signed up for Rebecca's private Idaho last year. Everyone says I've never heard one negative thing about that event. Rebecca does an amazing job putting on a neat reason. I want to. I signed up for it, so for this year? Yeah. Great. Yeah, so I'm excited. Grinduro up in Quincy is another incredible event. Craig Dalton: 13:36 And what did you think about that format? So for those of you guys who don't know, with grinder row, they had four time segments, so essentially you can ride as slow or fast as you want in between those segments, but the only timing that counts is in the segments. Do you like that format? Scott Witthoff : 13:52 Yeah, I really. I liked it because you're riding, you grab a group of friends and you ride pretty chill and then it's all bets are off. He'd go for it and he tried to smash one another up sometime segment. I usually get dropped pretty much in the parking lot. I'm, I'm already off the back early on that first hill climb. But you get an opportunity later to shine maybe on a descent, I'm maybe on the flap tt or there's four different types that in the last one is the single track. Yeah. Which was a lot of fun. Craig Dalton: 14:29 It made for some interesting sort of decisions about equipment because each one of those sections of taking something different. Scott Witthoff : 14:37 Yeah. I think, I mean if I had a lot of bikes at my disposal, I would choose a hard tail on that course because that lasts. Single track looks. Those guys on mountain bikes had a blast. Craig Dalton: 14:49 Yeah, it's funny. I was riding with a mutual friend of ours, David Belden, and we came to the same conclusion like our hard tail mountain bike overall would have been a faster vehicle to cover the terrain, although we both agreed like being on gravel bikes was a fun part of the experience, so we'll we'll see next year if I go hard tail mountain biker or stick on the on the gravel Finally I wanted to talk about an event that you put on and that has a really great history. The Coast Ride while it's not a gravel event, it certainly classifies as adventure cycling. Can you tell us a little bit about the origin of the Coast Ride and really what it is for people who aren't familiar with it? Scott Witthoff : 15:34 The Coast Ride, you know, everybody asks where did it start, and I honestly feel like it's been happening for as long as I've been alive. It just everybody rides in San Francisco. The old days they wrote San Francisco to Santa Barbara to San Diego. Greg Lemond the are stories of Greg on riding with his dad down the coast and I think he called the coast ride, but there are a bunch of triathletes I want to say ron early nineties that started it. They started here in San Francisco when they road down to San Diego and that was kinda their kickoff to the year and I started joining them 15 years ago where we would all carry a backpack. That's how we got down the coast where you'd carry backpacks and some years it was raining and some years are beautiful. Then in 2005 I had wasn't able to ride it, so I drove my car. I want it to be a part of it. So I drove it, started raining and everybody said, Hey Scott, do you mind if I put my backpack in your car? I was like, yeah, absolutely. Throw it in so I carried about 20 bags and that was the end of self supported. I ruined it for everybody. So ever since 2005 now we've had sag support. We only ride to Santa Barbara. It's a three day bike ride, but each day's I'm about a 125 miles and we stay in hotels along the way. Craig Dalton: 17:05 Yeah, it was my first version. I finally got to go on it this year. I loved it that I'd written the coast before by myself or with friends and there is something liberating about just heading south and running all day long and the camaraderie and just the basic organization that that you've been able to kind of cobbled together with other people involved has been really great for the cycling community. I mean obviously I know dozens of people who every year it's on their calendar today. Speaker 2: 17:33 Yeah, it's a neat. What I love about it is it, it really brings groups of people together. You know, this is a no frills bike ride like we don't. We have pizza at the end of the day, some sag stops, but it's really. You're just responsible for getting yourself down the coast and we'll take your bags and the whole goal is just, you know, I love seeing people meet other fellow cyclists. We had a couple get engaged a couple of years ago, which is pretty wonderful that they pulled over and proposed to his wife, so that was pretty neat. Craig Dalton: 18:10 That's great. And that's. There's a website. It's thecoastride.org dot, correct. Yeah. For those who you want to check it out, definitely take a look. There's some great pictures there. Talks about the routes. I mean obviously you can go out there and do it on your own with a backpack and Scott said, but if it makes sense in your January training plan, definitely come out there and check that out because the highway one down the coast, it just, it can't be beat. It's a world class place to ride your bike ever. Scott Witthoff : 18:35 We're truly lucky where we live to get and we've had some wet years people have done. Those are scarred and they won't come back to the coast ride because it's three very long days in the saddle, but if you have good weather like we've had last few years, it's pretty special. Craig Dalton: 18:50 Yeah, absolutely. Well, Scott, I appreciate the time today. It was great to learn a little bit more about your background and, and Midwest gravel riding. I think it's very illustrative. Um, as we as listeners start to explore, like where should I go? What should I put on my bucket list to gravel riding? I think he gave us a few good options. I'll put links to all the events that you mentioned in the podcast and uh, if you're comfortable, I'll put a link to your strava profile if people want to check out where you've been riding. Yeah. And I'll also post if you could send over one of your favorite travel routes. Absolutely. I'll post that as well. Thanks for. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Craig Dalton: 19:35 It was great to talk to Scott this week and let a little bit more about Dirty Kanza in The Coast ride and some of the other events he's participated in. I'll post notes to everything we've talked about in the show notes, and as always, if you have any questions or suggestions, follow us on instagram @thegravelride or shoot me a note at Craig@thegravelride.bike

Scott Witthoff : 00:03 What's hard about the first 50 miles of dirty Kansas is you're in a group of 50 guys and women. You're surrounded by folks all around you and you. It's really difficult to drink. Craig Dalton: 00:22 That was this week's guest Scott Whitthoff two time, age group winner at Dirty Kanza, talking about the first 15 miles of DK200. This week we talk about West Coast versus Midwest gravel and as always we'll talk about a few more events that you should have on your riding bucket list. Announcer : 00:38 Welcome to the gravel ride. Your go to podcast about the people, places and products that defined gravel cycling. Here's your host, Craig Dalton. Craig Dalton: 00:51 Welcome to the pod. Scott, I really appreciate you making the time to come talk to us today. Yeah, it's good to be here. So I know you from just General San Francisco cycling and and mainly like that epic ride you do on Saturdays, but can you tell me a little bit about your background as a cyclist? Scott Witthoff : 01:07 So I'm born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska. In High School I had some classmates that I really looked up to. They race every Saturday and they come to class on Monday morning showing off their eighty / hundred dollar cash winnings. I was like, what is that? You know, what do you get that for? And they're a big bike racers. So I got started when I was probably 16 years old. Craig Dalton: 01:33 That's a long journey in the sport. Scott Witthoff : 01:35 Yeah. And then I slowly kind of discovered that I wasn't a great cyclist. I was just average and um, I wasn't meant to be a bike racer and uh, I was on a cross country and track team, so picked up swimming and I turned into a little triathlete. Hate to say it, but that's sort of already my early days of cycling. I was kind of a triathlete. Craig Dalton: 02:01 We won't shame you for that. So then, you know, onto the subject of gravel writing. It sounds like from talking to you earlier that you discovered riding on dirt quite early, just by nature, that terrain that was around your home. Scott Witthoff : 02:16 I felt like I lived out in the country in Lincoln, lived on a small lake in the winter months. The group of guys I would ride with, we would spend a lot of time riding gravel roads. We would just head out and ride 20 miles, maybe 30 miles straight into a headwind and then turn around and ride back. That's kind of what you do in the Midwest. You wherever the winds out of you ride in straight into that headwind. And then have a tailwind coming back. Craig Dalton: 02:44 And were you just writing your regular road bike out on those rides Scott Witthoff : 02:46 in the winter wheat. Then we'd try to ride a road bikes as much as possible. And then we slowly started riding her mountain bikes. That was more the, that fast forwarding a little bit. That was around 1987. I got my first mountain bike and I love riding on my mountain bike. Um, so that was, but up until 87I only road my road bike on the gravel also. Lincoln has really hard pack gravel so it's pretty fast and it's not too loose. And different states like Kansas, you need to be on like more of a mountain bike or a gravel bike. Craig Dalton: 03:29 Gotcha. But you've been living out in the bay area for a while and obviously like the gravel racing and riding scene has really become popular over the last, let's call it five or six years. Were there elements of the equipment that you saw evolve that really made it come back into your life in earnest? Scott Witthoff : 03:48 I feel like last weekend was the Grasshopper, a Old Caz, which you were there and we had a, like it was an absolute blast. Racing that years ago on with cantilever brakes. Um, if it's muddy or I don't know, it just feels like disc brakes have really changed the ability to run a fatter tire nowadays on these gravel bikes is wonderful. Being able to put a 40 millimeter tire on your bike is pretty wonderful. Craig Dalton: 04:17 I think it's huge. I'm excited to talk to you because you're one of the few guys I know who has experience midwest gravel riding and gravel riding here in Marin County and northern California. So I'm, I'm curious to explore that a little bit and you know, maybe one way to do that is to talk about your experience at Dirty Kanza because here I guess it's three time veteran of that event in two time age group, winner. So I think your insights are going to be really fascinating on that. Scott Witthoff : 04:45 First off, that's an amazing race. It's, it's truly a community when you go back there and I look forward to going back to see friends and and see a lot of bay area people that travel all the way to Kansas. So he seemed so out of place. When you step off a plane and going to Emporia Kansas, you're like holy cow, look at all these people from all over all over the US Craig Dalton: 05:08 What inspired you to do it for the first time three years ago? Scott Witthoff : 05:11 There were some folks, some guys that I used to ride within Lincoln, Nebraska that had been doing it. One Guy, he, he's done 10 of them. I've always wanted to go do it, but I've been so intimidated by that distance. It's hard to wrap your head around 200 miles. Once you do it, it's. It turns out it's not as hard to wrap your head around once you complete your first one Craig Dalton: 05:38 Given the type of terrain we have out here in Marin county, which is a lot of ups and downs in a sustained fashion, so you know you're climbing 800 feet or a thousand feet to translate that to more that the rolling hills in the Midwest. It is a bit of a disconnect on how you train for it. Can you talk a little bit how you train for it and how you got head around it and how that actually translated when you were on the dirt? Scott Witthoff : 06:04 I did a lot of Saturday and Sunday, big, big blocks of training and I don't like to call it training. It just. I grab a group of friends and we go out and we do big Saturday ride on pavement and then maybe Sunday followed up with another big day, maybe two really big six hour days on the bike. You need to do some training off road just to get your upper body used to all the, the abuse that it will take because it's pounding on the handlebars. Craig Dalton: 06:35 Over 200 Mile Day, it's gotta be a lot of abuse. Is a different that it's sort of smaller. Rolling Hills and then the sustained descending that we do out here. Scott Witthoff : 06:44 I feel like what's hard about the first 50 miles of dairy, Kansas is you're in a group of 50 guys and women. You're surrounded by folks all around you and you. It's really difficult to drink, to hydrate. So I think a camelback is a must. Craig Dalton: 07:04 And did you figure that out on the first go round or did it take to the second? I'm a huge sweater. I cramp pretty easily if I don't have a camel back, um, I'll be in big trouble. But the first 15 miles you're not really taking your hands off the bars a whole lot. And then once it kind of spreads out, then you can kind of, once you're kind of in your little group than you're able to eat and drink and gather yourself a little bit. Craig Dalton: 07:30 And I was surprised to learn that there was a lot of flats at Dirty Kanza. What element of the terrain creates that? The Flint hills of Kansas are those razor sharp rocks are. Scott Witthoff : 07:42 I mean you see so many flat tires. Those first 50 miles, you're also in a big group so you can't eat or you might not be taking the best line. You might have to follow somebody. And sometimes I find myself trying to drift back a little bit to give myself some space because I've learned the hardware, you know, just flooding a lot. It seems like I get a lot of flats. I've kind of had to learn the hard way. I've got to drift back a little bit and have a good side of line, you know, I can see what I'm about to run into. Craig Dalton: 08:17 What kind of equipment were you riding? Scott Witthoff : 08:19 I'm a big fan of the specialized trigger. Tubeless. It's a 38 millimeter tire. Which has good sidewall protection and does it have a knob on it? Yeah. Does it has a great file tread like perfect for cancer. I feel like everybody's making a great tread is just how good is the sidewall protection. A lot of tires out there. Just don't have a lot of good sidewall casing. Right. Craig Dalton: 08:48 It sounds like that's a good investment if you're going to go tackle Dirty Kanza. Scott Witthoff : 08:51 It's a heavy tire. It's really heavy. Um, I think it's worth having a little bit higher volume tire. Craig Dalton: 09:00 Yeah. That offers a little bit more sidewall protection. So it sounds like a couple of takeaways are. Consider camelback for hydration just so you can stay hydrated during the first 50 miles and obviously the later in the day as it adds up. Great tires with good sidewalls. Last thing you want to do is make a long day even longer with a couple of flats and then just getting out there and then putting the mileage on however you can. And in your local, the local terrain. Scott Witthoff : 09:26 I feel like I carry. I have three bladders waiting for me. Each rest stop. There's only three rest stops over the 200 miles I roll in the feed zone and I'll quickly swap out one bladder and put it in a fresh one. Craig Dalton: 09:44 Was that a neutral area that you'd like? They just transported your gear bag and you found your number and you grabbed it or did you actually have friends out there helping you? Scott Witthoff : 09:52 Everyone needs to have their own support crew or you can do a for hire crew, which I've done the last three years. Um, it's a local, it's like $75. They and it's wonderful. I've highly recommended and they're the first. You go through the timing mat and they're the first group waiting for you, like big purple shammy butter tent. So you can find your crew quickly and then they have your back laying out for you. That's amazing. They call it in and they were like, can come see, you know, Scott would off and they've got your bag waiting for you. Craig Dalton: 10:26 I guess that comes with being a 12 year old event versus you know, many of the events were riding these days are, are one or two years old. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of sort of the iron man experience where it's just a little bit more dialed. You have to get you through the end of what is inevitably going to be an epic day. I mean we're talking about what a 13 hour day, which is far beyond what most of us usually ride. Scott Witthoff : 10:51 I would gladly open a couple more rest stops along the way. I find myself stuck in between usually the second and third totally dehydrated. No water. One year I had to pull off a group that I was in right up to a farmhouse and asked for some water how to sell. Wow. That got me to the third checkpoint. Craig Dalton: 11:14 I think what's interesting about all these gravel events is there, you know, they're, they're going in multiple different directions. Like something like Dirty Kanza, which has obviously been around for a long time, is an ultra endurance race, which is different than, you know, the four hour races of the grasshopper series or gravel mob or things like that. Um, and that's what I find really interesting about the sport in general is that things things are going in multiple different directions. And you know, I, for one, as I mentioned earlier, like I love the idea that the festival atmosphere, yeah, of these events that I hope regardless of how many people come on the front, that that spirit of adventure and that sort of community persists throughout these events. Scott Witthoff : 11:56 The one, one thing I really love about Dirty Kanza, the entire town of Emporia, they'd come out for it and they have, they have all these tents and pop up food vendors and it's neat to see all the, the winners, they come back out and they cheer people on until midnight. I mean, it's a party music going and I just think that's wonderful that it's neat to see the winners that come back down and cheer every last finisher. Craig Dalton: 12:25 Those guys have put together such an incredible event and I think, you know, for those of us who may not have spent a lot of time in Kansas to be able to go and participate in an event that has such a legacy in the sport and see how it's done. Right, and see how the community comes behind it. I think it's like a great model for, you know, some of the newer vans to aspire to. Scott Witthoff : 12:48 In Europe is now taking note of what dirty Kansas has done and they're putting on races over in Europe now. Based on that, the formula that works for dirty cancer, like what is it that makes a great race. I think we're seeing that everywhere people are putting on amazing races. Craig Dalton: 13:07 Are there some other events that you've done in the past or hope to do in the future that you're excited about? Scott Witthoff : 13:13 You know, I missed, I was signed up for Rebecca's private Idaho last year. Everyone says I've never heard one negative thing about that event. Rebecca does an amazing job putting on a neat reason. I want to. I signed up for it, so for this year? Yeah. Great. Yeah, so I'm excited. Grinduro up in Quincy is another incredible event. Craig Dalton: 13:36 And what did you think about that format? So for those of you guys who don't know, with grinder row, they had four time segments, so essentially you can ride as slow or fast as you want in between those segments, but the only timing that counts is in the segments. Do you like that format? Scott Witthoff : 13:52 Yeah, I really. I liked it because you're riding, you grab a group of friends and you ride pretty chill and then it's all bets are off. He'd go for it and he tried to smash one another up sometime segment. I usually get dropped pretty much in the parking lot. I'm, I'm already off the back early on that first hill climb. But you get an opportunity later to shine maybe on a descent, I'm maybe on the flap tt or there's four different types that in the last one is the single track. Yeah. Which was a lot of fun. Craig Dalton: 14:29 It made for some interesting sort of decisions about equipment because each one of those sections of taking something different. Scott Witthoff : 14:37 Yeah. I think, I mean if I had a lot of bikes at my disposal, I would choose a hard tail on that course because that lasts. Single track looks. Those guys on mountain bikes had a blast. Craig Dalton: 14:49 Yeah, it's funny. I was riding with a mutual friend of ours, David Belden, and we came to the same conclusion like our hard tail mountain bike overall would have been a faster vehicle to cover the terrain, although we both agreed like being on gravel bikes was a fun part of the experience, so we'll we'll see next year if I go hard tail mountain biker or stick on the on the gravel Finally I wanted to talk about an event that you put on and that has a really great history. The Coast Ride while it's not a gravel event, it certainly classifies as adventure cycling. Can you tell us a little bit about the origin of the Coast Ride and really what it is for people who aren't familiar with it? Scott Witthoff : 15:34 The Coast Ride, you know, everybody asks where did it start, and I honestly feel like it's been happening for as long as I've been alive. It just everybody rides in San Francisco. The old days they wrote San Francisco to Santa Barbara to San Diego. Greg Lemond the are stories of Greg on riding with his dad down the coast and I think he called the coast ride, but there are a bunch of triathletes I want to say ron early nineties that started it. They started here in San Francisco when they road down to San Diego and that was kinda their kickoff to the year and I started joining them 15 years ago where we would all carry a backpack. That's how we got down the coast where you'd carry backpacks and some years it was raining and some years are beautiful. Then in 2005 I had wasn't able to ride it, so I drove my car. I want it to be a part of it. So I drove it, started raining and everybody said, Hey Scott, do you mind if I put my backpack in your car? I was like, yeah, absolutely. Throw it in so I carried about 20 bags and that was the end of self supported. I ruined it for everybody. So ever since 2005 now we've had sag support. We only ride to Santa Barbara. It's a three day bike ride, but each day's I'm about a 125 miles and we stay in hotels along the way. Craig Dalton: 17:05 Yeah, it was my first version. I finally got to go on it this year. I loved it that I'd written the coast before by myself or with friends and there is something liberating about just heading south and running all day long and the camaraderie and just the basic organization that that you've been able to kind of cobbled together with other people involved has been really great for the cycling community. I mean obviously I know dozens of people who every year it's on their calendar today. Speaker 2: 17:33 Yeah, it's a neat. What I love about it is it, it really brings groups of people together. You know, this is a no frills bike ride like we don't. We have pizza at the end of the day, some sag stops, but it's really. You're just responsible for getting yourself down the coast and we'll take your bags and the whole goal is just, you know, I love seeing people meet other fellow cyclists. We had a couple get engaged a couple of years ago, which is pretty wonderful that they pulled over and proposed to his wife, so that was pretty neat. Craig Dalton: 18:10 That's great. And that's. There's a website. It's thecoastride.org dot, correct. Yeah. For those who you want to check it out, definitely take a look. There's some great pictures there. Talks about the routes. I mean obviously you can go out there and do it on your own with a backpack and Scott said, but if it makes sense in your January training plan, definitely come out there and check that out because the highway one down the coast, it just, it can't be beat. It's a world class place to ride your bike ever. Scott Witthoff : 18:35 We're truly lucky where we live to get and we've had some wet years people have done. Those are scarred and they won't come back to the coast ride because it's three very long days in the saddle, but if you have good weather like we've had last few years, it's pretty special. Craig Dalton: 18:50 Yeah, absolutely. Well, Scott, I appreciate the time today. It was great to learn a little bit more about your background and, and Midwest gravel riding. I think it's very illustrative. Um, as we as listeners start to explore, like where should I go? What should I put on my bucket list to gravel riding? I think he gave us a few good options. I'll put links to all the events that you mentioned in the podcast and uh, if you're comfortable, I'll put a link to your strava profile if people want to check out where you've been riding. Yeah. And I'll also post if you could send over one of your favorite travel routes. Absolutely. I'll post that as well. Thanks for. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Craig Dalton: 19:35 It was great to talk to Scott this week and let a little bit more about Dirty Kanza in The Coast ride and some of the other events he's participated in. I'll post notes to everything we've talked about in the show notes, and as always, if you have any questions or suggestions, follow us on instagram @thegravelride or shoot me a note at Craig@thegravelride.bike

Thanks for joining us on The Gravel Ride this week, Nate. I know you're busy preparing for your trip to Spain. But I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.

Yeah for sure anytime you're right on.

For starters can you tell us a little bit about your background as a cyclist. I think it's always interesting for our listeners to learn about you know our people come in from the road side or the mountain bike or both and how they discovered gravel riding.

So I started riding bikes when I was 14 started out pretty heavily in the dirt. I grew up in Utah and Salt Lake and mountain biking was kind of the thing you did there and didn't really take it that seriously until after college where I'd raced a little bit of cross-country a little bit downhill and kind of dabbled in all facets of the sport so I'm not tired side. And then I drop out of school and encountered road racing kind of obliquely at like the age of 22 23 and became professional road cyclist and that's at least domestically. Racing with Continental teams and now I'm here in that category.

Yeah it's a crazy journey actually when it when I first started following you on Instagram and seeing all the road cycling pictures you've got such a good pro road road a static that was like This guy's a a pure roadie. And so I started seeing more about the adventures you're done.

Yeah you know I've always taken a weird approach towards whatever it is I'm doing weather that you know racing on the road racing on a bike. I spent a few winters rate training down in South America Columbia before it was kind of a hot thing to do. And yeah. So I don't know to yell that for writing my writing my training like when I was with pro teams on singletrack. That also kind of you know always kind of been there. I'm not what I would call a talented talented cyclist at all. But I try.

It sounds like you've been riding drop bars in the dirt for a while.

Yeah. You know back when I was like right when I first turned pro. I really wanted kind of my forever bike which would be something with disc brakes and you know big big tires fender mounts and you Industry about five years out. But I think we're there now.

And what did you actually get on that you felt like was as close to that vision of a perfect forever bike.

Oh man I don't think I've found it yet. If I'm being quite frankly as you know OPEN's UP is up there for lack. No pun intended. But I you know I have a custom titanium road racing right now that has rim brakes. Yeah I haven't found it yet. It's still out there. My unicorn bike is still out there.

And are you in the 700 see wheel camp or the 650 camp when it comes to riding off road.

That's a really good question. It's it's hard to say. Some days. So when we here at Above Category when we first brought in OPEN I was pretty firmly ensconced in the 700c camp. And then last summer I did this crazy ride from the Lost and Found race up in the Sierras puts on down back down here to Marin County a few kind of out of the way dirt road route. And I did it on 650b's with these huge 40 mm Compass with tires and that kind of opened my eyes to the smiling real side is just as far as the way the bike drove in with the bike handle. I've always been a really fed up with a really low bottom bracket and kind of really the feeling of being in the bike and those kind of afford that versus roaming the set and hundreds of for much bigger but I still go back and forth. I think having one set of each is the way to go right on.

Right on. And was that was that we'll set the 650 be the same one you race same tires and everything that you race Lost and Found on

yeah yeah. So yeah I did. You know I've found that like really really high volume slick tires you can get pretty decent traction as long as you're not in. Really loose or really muddy situations. This year the sheer size of the contact patch that the foot higher gives up the space with eroding lower pressures yeah to make up for the lack of knobs

You were on fairly mixed terrain when you're doing that ride back to the Bay Area. Did you change the tire pressure from when you were racing on Lost and Found to the roads or to keep it about the same.

Yeah I pump it up just a little bit between on the side of the road heavy days. But it wasn't anything bigger than like a 10 PS difference. It was pretty minimal. Yeah I didn't really have any complaints as far as the tires themselves when it came to pavement.

Yeah this has been one of the really fascinating parts about the gravel riding scene for me has been the debate around wheel size and I tend to be with you. I've got a set of 650b that I ride Off-Road and 700 C on the road. But over the course of events that I've been doing I honestly could pick one or the other depending on the particular event. And I think that's part of the magic of gravel riding it's like it's it's never perfect and we talked about this a little bit before when we were talking about designing events like I think you want people to have that question when they're going into an event like this. How do I set this bike up to be right.

Yep that's kind of the magic of it a little bit of the mystery. It's like you're never on the right bike and you're always on the wrong stuff at some at some point. Like I mean I think back to a good friend Burke Swindelhurst who who put on who puts on the Crusher in the Tuscher which I think the first one was like 2012. And I did that in kind of the one of the overriding themes like the pre race briefing was. No matter which bike you brought it's going to be wrong at some point during this race. That's good.

So back in 2012 I bet at Crusher you had some guys on on cross bikes, mountain bikes and road bikes.

Yes. So that one you have to play itself out before you know travel was really saying Yeah and even disc brakes on a drop bike. With the thing and I was racing for the competitive cyclists pro team at the time I was working for Backcountry dot com which owned Competitive and we had this one off prototype disc brake cross bike kicking around a mechanical disc brakes and like 34 millimeter tires or something kind of like that's the bike I want I want it that one and I think that was probably one of only like probably three or four out of a few hundred people there that was on disc brakes and everyone else was on cantis and there were a couple of crazy people on at least this disc road bike or drop bar bikes and there were a few other crazy people on rode bikes and but mostly with mountain bikes and now I think that's pretty heavily shifted. So yeah

it really has a day events I've done recently and including the one you put together it's like everybody's on desk. There's like maybe 5 percent of the people who are riding old cross bikes or cantilevers and as I'm ripping by them on the descents I'm just remembering what it was like to descend with cantilevers and how pumped out my hand to get

Yeah I mean it's I mean I was kind of started riding mountain bikes probably was kind of near the tail end of this race taking over everything but my first mountain bikes were the brake bikes and I remember the first day that I got hydraulic this great bike I'm like oh my hands they don't they don't hurt you people who can actually descend were like oh well you need a brakeless. But you know hydraulics brakes are definitely a revelation especially on a drop bar bike.

So yeah that was a big big step for me and my my gravel bike pursuits I started on a mechanical disc brake bike with 700c tires and now graduating to the hydraulics and the 650b's the descending is like night and day. And I think here in the bay area we've got some really ripping descents but they can be super painful when you're not on the right gear. I remember starting out here on her recrossed bike and just I would flat all the time and I really couldn't ride anywhere near what I could do on the mountain bike. Now with the OPEN with the 650b's coming down Coastal or something like that where it's a pretty long sustained descent with a lot of ruts it's just it can be pleasurable riding riding a gravel bike downhill. Finally

Yeah yeah and you know after we you know we did the event and we put that we put a post postcard survey out just like what did you do like what did you not like about the event. And there were a few pillars like I can't believe that you descend Coastal on the gravel bike well maybe your equipment choices that very moment in time you know but yeah and from my perspective that means you've done it right as a race organizer and route planner because you've made someone complain about their equipment at least once during the ride.

I mean yeah it is everybody says that the whole course was perfect for whatever they were the whole time. Probably a sign that I use something else at them. So yeah

It was probably a road ride at that point.

Exactly.

Now I haven't done too much outside of the West Coast in terms of gravel riding but I think it's interesting you know when you talk about events like Dirty Kanza and some of the stuff in the Midwest how different that riding is and I wonder if the conversation we'd be having leaning toward 650b's a little bit wider tires with lower pressure would be the same.

If that was right outside her door yeah you know I've not had I've done a little bit of I guess you know mix terrain riding in the south of Athens Georgia. A few other spots down there but I've not done anything else kind of west of I guess you could take hold that are east of Colorado. So I'm not in Kanza yet. I've yet to be cajoled into suffering. But I've heard stories of the shale pointing this at all. So maybe one day I'll get myself out there but I'm not. I can't speak to that.

Yeah I'm looking for it. I'm going to talk to some guys who have survived Dirty Kanza and just get their perspective guys who I know live out here on the west coast and have been out there because I think it's gets quite a bit different. You know obviously here in Marin County we've got a ton of ups and downs in our gravel riding in it. It starts to almost blend into mountain biking at times quite different from that Midwest terrain.

Yeah definitely. You know here it's I mean and part of it is especially here in Marin that we don't really have come from Utah on here basically spending half my life Moab and Park City and riding singletrack and pretty technical stuff here we don't really have that. And just by nature of you know pretty much single track bikes being totally illegal on Tam that it's really easy to kind of blur those distinctions and to have people you know riding six inch Enduro bikes on what amounts to places that could take a jeep down. So it's interesting to see how that evolves here at least locally.

Yeah it really is. I want to talk about the ride you put on the officialy serious gravel bike ride can you tell us a little bit about the event and what the origins were.

Yeah well I mean we're has been it's been marinating for a while here. Least at Above Category. I always wanted to put on some sort of kind of mixed rain event that really showcase the what was really rad about these kinds of bikes especially locally just because like I said single track is easily accessible on bikes. And then we have the crown jewel of preserve open space so close to a pretty big population center in the country. And finally we kind of reined in some momentum to get it done and we did it kind of locally we've got the grasshopper's but there's nothing up in Sonoma is nothing really down here in Marin and I was kind of like asking why why. Why did nobody do this here. And the ability to live together so many so many gravel roads with pavement and string it all together and kind of share that with everyone was kind of what was the driving force behind that. So yeah

it was an awesome event. The route was great and the turnout was just amazing to that exceed what you guys are thinking.

Definitely I thought we'd maybe get like 30 or 40 people who would be like oh cool and whatever. And we got 30. So it was quite a bit more than we thought we really at least.

That's awesome. Everybody was having a really good time and speaking from the mid pack section. People were just cool you know we were using our guests to navigate or getting around the different court corners and missing corners. But coming back to them and everything was great. I discovered some new terrain which was stoked on the other side of Pine Mountain. I was riding with some guys down from the south bay in San Jose who came up so I think you're right. I think there's a ton of pent up demand for events in this area and part of me wasn't surprised when I saw that pack rolling to me in Mill Valley. I was just stoked to see it because I think this gravel riding's been so much fun for me. And I think it's so good for all the reasons you mentioned about why it's good in Marin County. I just think more and more people need to discover it. I'm going to post a link to the course profile that you guys posted so that anybody visiting the area can go hit up some of those trails.

Yeah sure. That's awesome. No it's not. I think that's really one of the reasons that gravel writing is so exciting. A lot of people especially here on the West Coast where a population density isn't quite too high. Other areas of the country there's not the same kind of I guess for lack of a better phrase road density so you end up doing the same route like the road cyclist especially as the training of the race or his training you end up doing the same stuff over and over and over and over and have suddenly this new plethora route and and new trails to discover new areas too. Or is kind of liberating and is kind of freeing. Which is pretty rad to me.

So yeah totally agree. I mean the fact that we were able what we were doing all this great dirt riding during the event and then next thing I know we pop out at Alpine Dam and do one of the Bay Area's sort of quintessential road climbs and riding across seven sisters. It just sorta underscores what you're saying about it. We can mix together the best of the dirt and the best of the road and create something that feels entirely new compared to the road loops we've done hundreds of times.

Yeah exactly. I mean like I know there's a lot of naysayers out there who are just like oh you just know that I'm humpbacked full time I think. Yeah you do. But it sucks writing a flat BB bike on the road like nobody wants to do 30 miles to pavement on a bike. I've done it it's it's hell but you could drop bars on put skinner tires on a little bit more of an aerodynamic position and suddenly you're like oh this is totally tolerable. I do this all day everyday.

Exactly exactly. So I hear you're planning another gravel ride. Is there anything you can share about the event.

Well yeah probably will be kind of locked in a date so far. March 24th. Saturday. I think it's the last Saturday after the last Grasshopper of the year. So it's still pretty fresh at least locally. Definitely going to have a bit more structure around it. A little The less choose your own adventure will will will have a few a few more stops a little bit more route marking. You were mentioning that you were wrong turns only those few skid marks around and of the blind turns. And yeah kind of same idea just bunch of people out there having fun. We might even time at least the first few people who come through who really want to be agro and competitive. I have full intention to chill out and ride with friends.

Right on. Well that sounds awesome I meant as part of the community. I can't thank you and Above Category and the other sponsors enough for kind of putting a stake in the ground and getting out there and doing things because I think it's really it's really bringing together that San Francisco Bay Area. Gravel cyclists and a meeting a lot of new people and it's just been great. I love these type of events yeah.

Yeah, I'm in the same boat otherwise I wouldn't do them.

Right one. Any other gravel events you'd recommend that our listeners check out that you've done before.

You there's one coming up. I don't know if that is going to be published before then or not. But the Rock cobbler down in Bakersfield run by Sam Born is outstanding. Usually I think this year it's sometime around Valentine's Day and we'll be in town for it at all. Highly recommend everyone to go check that one out. Okay. After that. Any of the grasshopper events. They're not strictly grabble are always a good time always really good local community. A lot of fasts guys in front lot people chilling out in the middle a lot of people smoking bowls at the back. And then obviously the Grinduro events are without a doubt the most fun I've had on a bike. There have been in Scotland this year. They started that with last year and then the the one in Quincy up near Downieville at the at the end of the season is always great. And after that I would definitely recommend Crusher and the Tusher if you're willing to drive up to southern Utah for it puts on a stellar event and the local community and Beaver really gets into it.

s that more towards the end of the season.

Crusher it usually is late July typically when it goes on and it's I think it's probably sold out by now. If memory serves me correct. He puts up the registration in January every year the sells up quickly. But I know the transfer form is pretty active.

I'll put links to all these events in the show notes. Anybody who's interested can check him out and put them on a calendar if you can't get into crusher this year. Put on your calendar and we'll get in in 2019.

Yeah definitely worth the trip and definitely we're just hanging out Beaver and hanging out with Burke for a while. He's he's he's a fun guy to know right on.

I appreciate the tips on that. So switching gears I know you're off to Spain this weekend to start a new adventure professionally. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what you're going to be working on.

Yes. So I'm kind of not necessarily moving on from above category but kind of have a new a new track in life. I'll be can be American brand manager for a brand called Chapter 3 which does well it's a new brand but it was pretty old roots started by former British professional cyclists David Miller and yeah we're kind of excited to hit things full force based the Girona. So we'll be there for the next two and a half weeks kind of on. I guess call initial training camp with them and rocking that from now on. So that's awesome.

I can't wait to hear more about it as that unfolds and are you going to do your awesome work for them. If people are interested in following you and seeing more about your adventures what's a good place to check out what you have been doing

The Instagram feed pretty good. It's mostly a mix of pictures and motorcycle pictures. @KingTheNate and then I guess I'm kind of on Strava. I don't I don't post that much there. But when I write of people I will and I've got a whole shit Pilar's out there that are pretty solid for insanity if that's your thing.

So awesome. Wow I really appreciate the time Nate safe travels to Gerona and will check in with you later.

Thanks for joining us on The Gravel Ride this week, Nate. I know you're busy preparing for your trip to Spain. But I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.

Yeah for sure anytime you're right on.

For starters can you tell us a little bit about your background as a cyclist. I think it's always interesting for our listeners to learn about you know our people come in from the road side or the mountain bike or both and how they discovered gravel riding.

So I started riding bikes when I was 14 started out pretty heavily in the dirt. I grew up in Utah and Salt Lake and mountain biking was kind of the thing you did there and didn't really take it that seriously until after college where I'd raced a little bit of cross-country a little bit downhill and kind of dabbled in all facets of the sport so I'm not tired side. And then I drop out of school and encountered road racing kind of obliquely at like the age of 22 23 and became professional road cyclist and that's at least domestically. Racing with Continental teams and now I'm here in that category.

Yeah it's a crazy journey actually when it when I first started following you on Instagram and seeing all the road cycling pictures you've got such a good pro road road a static that was like This guy's a a pure roadie. And so I started seeing more about the adventures you're done.

Yeah you know I've always taken a weird approach towards whatever it is I'm doing weather that you know racing on the road racing on a bike. I spent a few winters rate training down in South America Columbia before it was kind of a hot thing to do. And yeah. So I don't know to yell that for writing my writing my training like when I was with pro teams on singletrack. That also kind of you know always kind of been there. I'm not what I would call a talented talented cyclist at all. But I try.

It sounds like you've been riding drop bars in the dirt for a while.

Yeah. You know back when I was like right when I first turned pro. I really wanted kind of my forever bike which would be something with disc brakes and you know big big tires fender mounts and you Industry about five years out. But I think we're there now.

And what did you actually get on that you felt like was as close to that vision of a perfect forever bike.

Oh man I don't think I've found it yet. If I'm being quite frankly as you know OPEN's UP is up there for lack. No pun intended. But I you know I have a custom titanium road racing right now that has rim brakes. Yeah I haven't found it yet. It's still out there. My unicorn bike is still out there.

And are you in the 700 see wheel camp or the 650 camp when it comes to riding off road.

That's a really good question. It's it's hard to say. Some days. So when we here at Above Category when we first brought in OPEN I was pretty firmly ensconced in the 700c camp. And then last summer I did this crazy ride from the Lost and Found race up in the Sierras puts on down back down here to Marin County a few kind of out of the way dirt road route. And I did it on 650b's with these huge 40 mm Compass with tires and that kind of opened my eyes to the smiling real side is just as far as the way the bike drove in with the bike handle. I've always been a really fed up with a really low bottom bracket and kind of really the feeling of being in the bike and those kind of afford that versus roaming the set and hundreds of for much bigger but I still go back and forth. I think having one set of each is the way to go right on.

Right on. And was that was that we'll set the 650 be the same one you race same tires and everything that you race Lost and Found on

yeah yeah. So yeah I did. You know I've found that like really really high volume slick tires you can get pretty decent traction as long as you're not in. Really loose or really muddy situations. This year the sheer size of the contact patch that the foot higher gives up the space with eroding lower pressures yeah to make up for the lack of knobs

You were on fairly mixed terrain when you're doing that ride back to the Bay Area. Did you change the tire pressure from when you were racing on Lost and Found to the roads or to keep it about the same.

Yeah I pump it up just a little bit between on the side of the road heavy days. But it wasn't anything bigger than like a 10 PS difference. It was pretty minimal. Yeah I didn't really have any complaints as far as the tires themselves when it came to pavement.

Yeah this has been one of the really fascinating parts about the gravel riding scene for me has been the debate around wheel size and I tend to be with you. I've got a set of 650b that I ride Off-Road and 700 C on the road. But over the course of events that I've been doing I honestly could pick one or the other depending on the particular event. And I think that's part of the magic of gravel riding it's like it's it's never perfect and we talked about this a little bit before when we were talking about designing events like I think you want people to have that question when they're going into an event like this. How do I set this bike up to be right.

Yep that's kind of the magic of it a little bit of the mystery. It's like you're never on the right bike and you're always on the wrong stuff at some at some point. Like I mean I think back to a good friend Burke Swindelhurst who who put on who puts on the Crusher in the Tuscher which I think the first one was like 2012. And I did that in kind of the one of the overriding themes like the pre race briefing was. No matter which bike you brought it's going to be wrong at some point during this race. That's good.

So back in 2012 I bet at Crusher you had some guys on on cross bikes, mountain bikes and road bikes.

Yes. So that one you have to play itself out before you know travel was really saying Yeah and even disc brakes on a drop bike. With the thing and I was racing for the competitive cyclists pro team at the time I was working for Backcountry dot com which owned Competitive and we had this one off prototype disc brake cross bike kicking around a mechanical disc brakes and like 34 millimeter tires or something kind of like that's the bike I want I want it that one and I think that was probably one of only like probably three or four out of a few hundred people there that was on disc brakes and everyone else was on cantis and there were a couple of crazy people on at least this disc road bike or drop bar bikes and there were a few other crazy people on rode bikes and but mostly with mountain bikes and now I think that's pretty heavily shifted. So yeah

it really has a day events I've done recently and including the one you put together it's like everybody's on desk. There's like maybe 5 percent of the people who are riding old cross bikes or cantilevers and as I'm ripping by them on the descents I'm just remembering what it was like to descend with cantilevers and how pumped out my hand to get

Yeah I mean it's I mean I was kind of started riding mountain bikes probably was kind of near the tail end of this race taking over everything but my first mountain bikes were the brake bikes and I remember the first day that I got hydraulic this great bike I'm like oh my hands they don't they don't hurt you people who can actually descend were like oh well you need a brakeless. But you know hydraulics brakes are definitely a revelation especially on a drop bar bike.

So yeah that was a big big step for me and my my gravel bike pursuits I started on a mechanical disc brake bike with 700c tires and now graduating to the hydraulics and the 650b's the descending is like night and day. And I think here in the bay area we've got some really ripping descents but they can be super painful when you're not on the right gear. I remember starting out here on her recrossed bike and just I would flat all the time and I really couldn't ride anywhere near what I could do on the mountain bike. Now with the OPEN with the 650b's coming down Coastal or something like that where it's a pretty long sustained descent with a lot of ruts it's just it can be pleasurable riding riding a gravel bike downhill. Finally

Yeah yeah and you know after we you know we did the event and we put that we put a post postcard survey out just like what did you do like what did you not like about the event. And there were a few pillars like I can't believe that you descend Coastal on the gravel bike well maybe your equipment choices that very moment in time you know but yeah and from my perspective that means you've done it right as a race organizer and route planner because you've made someone complain about their equipment at least once during the ride.

I mean yeah it is everybody says that the whole course was perfect for whatever they were the whole time. Probably a sign that I use something else at them. So yeah

It was probably a road ride at that point.

Exactly.

Now I haven't done too much outside of the West Coast in terms of gravel riding but I think it's interesting you know when you talk about events like Dirty Kanza and some of the stuff in the Midwest how different that riding is and I wonder if the conversation we'd be having leaning toward 650b's a little bit wider tires with lower pressure would be the same.

If that was right outside her door yeah you know I've not had I've done a little bit of I guess you know mix terrain riding in the south of Athens Georgia. A few other spots down there but I've not done anything else kind of west of I guess you could take hold that are east of Colorado. So I'm not in Kanza yet. I've yet to be cajoled into suffering. But I've heard stories of the shale pointing this at all. So maybe one day I'll get myself out there but I'm not. I can't speak to that.

Yeah I'm looking for it. I'm going to talk to some guys who have survived Dirty Kanza and just get their perspective guys who I know live out here on the west coast and have been out there because I think it's gets quite a bit different. You know obviously here in Marin County we've got a ton of ups and downs in our gravel riding in it. It starts to almost blend into mountain biking at times quite different from that Midwest terrain.

Yeah definitely. You know here it's I mean and part of it is especially here in Marin that we don't really have come from Utah on here basically spending half my life Moab and Park City and riding singletrack and pretty technical stuff here we don't really have that. And just by nature of you know pretty much single track bikes being totally illegal on Tam that it's really easy to kind of blur those distinctions and to have people you know riding six inch Enduro bikes on what amounts to places that could take a jeep down. So it's interesting to see how that evolves here at least locally.

Yeah it really is. I want to talk about the ride you put on the officialy serious gravel bike ride can you tell us a little bit about the event and what the origins were.

Yeah well I mean we're has been it's been marinating for a while here. Least at Above Category. I always wanted to put on some sort of kind of mixed rain event that really showcase the what was really rad about these kinds of bikes especially locally just because like I said single track is easily accessible on bikes. And then we have the crown jewel of preserve open space so close to a pretty big population center in the country. And finally we kind of reined in some momentum to get it done and we did it kind of locally we've got the grasshopper's but there's nothing up in Sonoma is nothing really down here in Marin and I was kind of like asking why why. Why did nobody do this here. And the ability to live together so many so many gravel roads with pavement and string it all together and kind of share that with everyone was kind of what was the driving force behind that. So yeah

it was an awesome event. The route was great and the turnout was just amazing to that exceed what you guys are thinking.

Definitely I thought we'd maybe get like 30 or 40 people who would be like oh cool and whatever. And we got 30. So it was quite a bit more than we thought we really at least.

That's awesome. Everybody was having a really good time and speaking from the mid pack section. People were just cool you know we were using our guests to navigate or getting around the different court corners and missing corners. But coming back to them and everything was great. I discovered some new terrain which was stoked on the other side of Pine Mountain. I was riding with some guys down from the south bay in San Jose who came up so I think you're right. I think there's a ton of pent up demand for events in this area and part of me wasn't surprised when I saw that pack rolling to me in Mill Valley. I was just stoked to see it because I think this gravel riding's been so much fun for me. And I think it's so good for all the reasons you mentioned about why it's good in Marin County. I just think more and more people need to discover it. I'm going to post a link to the course profile that you guys posted so that anybody visiting the area can go hit up some of those trails.

Yeah sure. That's awesome. No it's not. I think that's really one of the reasons that gravel writing is so exciting. A lot of people especially here on the West Coast where a population density isn't quite too high. Other areas of the country there's not the same kind of I guess for lack of a better phrase road density so you end up doing the same route like the road cyclist especially as the training of the race or his training you end up doing the same stuff over and over and over and over and have suddenly this new plethora route and and new trails to discover new areas too. Or is kind of liberating and is kind of freeing. Which is pretty rad to me.

So yeah totally agree. I mean the fact that we were able what we were doing all this great dirt riding during the event and then next thing I know we pop out at Alpine Dam and do one of the Bay Area's sort of quintessential road climbs and riding across seven sisters. It just sorta underscores what you're saying about it. We can mix together the best of the dirt and the best of the road and create something that feels entirely new compared to the road loops we've done hundreds of times.

Yeah exactly. I mean like I know there's a lot of naysayers out there who are just like oh you just know that I'm humpbacked full time I think. Yeah you do. But it sucks writing a flat BB bike on the road like nobody wants to do 30 miles to pavement on a bike. I've done it it's it's hell but you could drop bars on put skinner tires on a little bit more of an aerodynamic position and suddenly you're like oh this is totally tolerable. I do this all day everyday.

Exactly exactly. So I hear you're planning another gravel ride. Is there anything you can share about the event.

Well yeah probably will be kind of locked in a date so far. March 24th. Saturday. I think it's the last Saturday after the last Grasshopper of the year. So it's still pretty fresh at least locally. Definitely going to have a bit more structure around it. A little The less choose your own adventure will will will have a few a few more stops a little bit more route marking. You were mentioning that you were wrong turns only those few skid marks around and of the blind turns. And yeah kind of same idea just bunch of people out there having fun. We might even time at least the first few people who come through who really want to be agro and competitive. I have full intention to chill out and ride with friends.

Right on. Well that sounds awesome I meant as part of the community. I can't thank you and Above Category and the other sponsors enough for kind of putting a stake in the ground and getting out there and doing things because I think it's really it's really bringing together that San Francisco Bay Area. Gravel cyclists and a meeting a lot of new people and it's just been great. I love these type of events yeah.

Yeah, I'm in the same boat otherwise I wouldn't do them.

Right one. Any other gravel events you'd recommend that our listeners check out that you've done before.

You there's one coming up. I don't know if that is going to be published before then or not. But the Rock cobbler down in Bakersfield run by Sam Born is outstanding. Usually I think this year it's sometime around Valentine's Day and we'll be in town for it at all. Highly recommend everyone to go check that one out. Okay. After that. Any of the grasshopper events. They're not strictly grabble are always a good time always really good local community. A lot of fasts guys in front lot people chilling out in the middle a lot of people smoking bowls at the back. And then obviously the Grinduro events are without a doubt the most fun I've had on a bike. There have been in Scotland this year. They started that with last year and then the the one in Quincy up near Downieville at the at the end of the season is always great. And after that I would definitely recommend Crusher and the Tusher if you're willing to drive up to southern Utah for it puts on a stellar event and the local community and Beaver really gets into it.

s that more towards the end of the season.

Crusher it usually is late July typically when it goes on and it's I think it's probably sold out by now. If memory serves me correct. He puts up the registration in January every year the sells up quickly. But I know the transfer form is pretty active.

I'll put links to all these events in the show notes. Anybody who's interested can check him out and put them on a calendar if you can't get into crusher this year. Put on your calendar and we'll get in in 2019.

Yeah definitely worth the trip and definitely we're just hanging out Beaver and hanging out with Burke for a while. He's he's he's a fun guy to know right on.

I appreciate the tips on that. So switching gears I know you're off to Spain this weekend to start a new adventure professionally. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what you're going to be working on.

Yes. So I'm kind of not necessarily moving on from above category but kind of have a new a new track in life. I'll be can be American brand manager for a brand called Chapter 3 which does well it's a new brand but it was pretty old roots started by former British professional cyclists David Miller and yeah we're kind of excited to hit things full force based the Girona. So we'll be there for the next two and a half weeks kind of on. I guess call initial training camp with them and rocking that from now on. So that's awesome.

I can't wait to hear more about it as that unfolds and are you going to do your awesome work for them. If people are interested in following you and seeing more about your adventures what's a good place to check out what you have been doing

The Instagram feed pretty good. It's mostly a mix of pictures and motorcycle pictures. @KingTheNate and then I guess I'm kind of on Strava. I don't I don't post that much there. But when I write of people I will and I've got a whole shit Pilar's out there that are pretty solid for insanity if that's your thing.

So awesome. Wow I really appreciate the time Nate safe travels to Gerona and will check in with you later.

Yeah for sure Craig thanks for having me.

]]>23:01clean Above Category Bike Shop Chpt 3 RockCobbler Tushar Crusher Episode Transcript Thanks for joining us on The Gravel Ride this week,...]]>A conversation with Nate King from Above Category and CHPT3 about gravel cycling. We discuss the 'Officially Serious <Gravel?> Bicycle ride, the unicorn bike and a variety of things related to gravel cycling. 2fullCraig Dalton Introduction to The Gravel Ride Podcast. A cycling Podcast. Introduction to The Gravel Ride Podcast. A cycling Podcast. Fri, 16 Feb 2018 03:22:28 +0000Introduction to The Gravel Ride Podcast. A cycling podcast where we will be discussing the people, places and products that define modern gravel cycling.

#gravelgrinding #gravelriding #cycling #bikes

]]>Introduction to The Gravel Ride Podcast. A cycling podcast where we will be discussing the people, places and products that define modern gravel cycling.

#gravelgrinding #gravelriding #cycling #bikes

]]>01:54cleancycling,gravel,bicycles,gravelgrinding,gravelridingIntroduction to The Gravel Ride Podcast. A cycling podcast where we will be discussing the people, places and products that define modern gravel cycling. 1trailerCraig Dalton